After reporting last week that Amazon was in talks with the Tolkien Estate on creating a possible Lord of the Rings series for the streaming service, I can announce that it has been officially confirmed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon has committed to creating a Lord of the Rings live action series for their Amazon Prime service in a deal with the Tolkien Estate, Harper Collins and New Line Entertainment. The series will be produced in-house at Amazon Studios and will be an original series set in Middle Earth that will explore storylines that take place before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring.
The deal with Amazon also includes possible spinoff series as well.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos sent out a mandate to his team that they find him a Game of Thrones style genre series that the network could air. According to Amazon’s head of scripted Sharon Tal Yguado; “The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen,” she said. “We are honored to be working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line on this exciting collaboration for television and are thrilled to be taking The Lord of the Rings fans on a new epic journey in Middle Earth.”
After settling a lawsuit with Warner Brothers over the series, the Tolkien Estate appears to be excited to collaborate with the studio on this new venture, releasing a statement saying; “We are delighted that Amazon, with its longstanding commitment to literature, is the home of the first-ever multi-season television series for The Lord of the Rings,” said Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins. “Sharon and the team at Amazon Studios have exceptional ideas to bring to the screen previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings.”
Several outlets have been vying for a new series that could replace the monster hit Game of Thrones as it looks to end after the next season and it looks like Amazon might have landed the most viable IP of the genres with Lord of the Rings. The multi-season deal means that the writers and producers will have the ability to craft some interesting stories going forward and fans will get to see new sides of Middle Earth.
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