Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Lord of the Rings Television

Amazon Prime Spends $465M on First Season of Its 'Lord of the Rings' Series (indiewire.com) 104

Posted by EditorDavid from the not-simply-walking-into-Mordor dept.
Monday Amazon posted a 15-second teaser trailer on Twitter for their upcoming Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power (premiering September 2nd) — drawing on two lavish one-minute trailers released earlier in the year.

"The first season of Amazon's show will be the most expensive season of television ever produced," reports IndieWire: Season 1 has a $465 million budget. Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke stated in May 2021 that she was "pretty confident" that the show will draw the required viewership to make the money worth spent.

Back in 2017, when it was reported that Amazon had bought the rights to "The Lord of the Rings" — winning a bidding war against Netflix — the number reported with that sale was $250 million. That number alone made it the most expensive television series ever, but later, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the whole series would end up costing more than $1 billion, due to production expenses (casting, producers, visual effects, etc.). "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy's own Elijah Wood reacted to that particular figure during an interview, saying, "That's crazy to me." For context, the Peter Jackson trilogy grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. The combined budget for all three films was $281 million.

That $250 million rights deal for "The Lord of the Rings" also came with a five-season commitment for the series. A guaranteed five seasons should also guarantee at least one full story told from beginning to end, even though there's always the possibility of more, depending on the series' success. The deal also allowed for the potential of spin-off series, which could mean the potential for even more of Middle-earth outside just this adaptation. In November 2019, Deadline confirmed that Amazon had officially ordered a second season of the series and that it was already in the works. According to the report, the official early renewal means that there will be a shorter wait time between the first two seasons come release.

However, the series may not ever get out of the Second Age — which is, again, 3,441 years long, so it's got a lot to work with — as, according to Tolkien scholar and "The Lord of the Rings" consultant Tom Shippey, the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has refused to grant Amazon permission to film anything other than the Second Age, as to not alter the history of the more fleshed out Third Age. "But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions..."
The tagline of the newly-released trailer? "Nothing is evil...in the beginning."

In 2019 Shippey was quoted as saying the first season would have either 20 episodes or 22 episodes, though this year Amazon said a number "hasn't been officially announced."

And there's one other thing we know. There will be orcs (and some of their backstory), according to IGN's exclusive interview with the show's executive producer — and the head of its prosthetic department.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Amazon Prime Spends $465M on First Season of Its 'Lord of the Rings' Series More

Amazon Prime Spends $465M on First Season of Its 'Lord of the Rings' Series

Comments Filter:
  • Women mostly not having beards, is a human thing. Testosterone driven beard formation, is a human thing. Give the fucking dwarves beards

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by DarnOregonian ( 10088276 )
      We need to take care of this inflation thing first. 465 BILLION dollars. That's like three orders of magnitude more than it was mere seconds prior when I read the previous paragraph. I'm having second thoughts about the current administration doing everything possible and killing the petro industry...talk bout hyper inflation!

      • Just see the positive about inflation as you can expect all of American middle class to be millionaires soon. /sarcasm

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yeah, I see what you mean. Even works of fiction should succumb to your manly fixation.

  • $465B (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blugalf ( 7063499 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @02:37PM (#62670264)
    Yeah right. Units don't matter anymore, so sad.

  • WOW! 465 how much?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LibberGeek ( 9990738 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @02:39PM (#62670270)
    $465,000,000,000.00!!!! WOW!!!

  • Smart (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @02:42PM (#62670278)

    Tolkien has refused to grant Amazon permission to film anything other than the Second Age, as to not alter the history of the more fleshed out Third Age.

    It seems they learn from the mistakes of others. Basically this means that they want to protect established lore from being rewritten to fit some agenda.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by davide marney ( 231845 )

      I for one welcome our new Woke Overlords. How awesome it will be to see the first trans Orc with purple dyed unwashed hair.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Loking forward to the eye of sauron having mascara, frodinas toes to be well waxed and the rings being filigree white gold with diamond surrounded by rubies.

          Because noone wants to see that old white male wizard crap.

        • We're just lucky there's no Menzoberranzan in Tolkien lore or this would certainly be a popcorn event.

          And I'm not talking about the show, I'm talking about the shitshow that would start around it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        In our D&D games, orcs have always looked like that.

    • If you did, you'd realize that existing movies are an extremely edited version of the books - to the point that it is essentially a completely rewritten story with a highly "dulce et decorum" masturbatory plot.
      Director has a hard-on for such stories. [imdb.com] And the world's biggest collection of WW1 airplanes. [autoevolution.com]
      Peter Jackson is a WW1 fanboi.

      And that's just the LotR movies.

      Hobbit movies are basically bad fan fiction written from scratch, because more movie equals more moneys.
      Where any rewriting to forward an agenda wa

  • You had one job (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chazus ( 988753 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @02:47PM (#62670286)
    "EditorDavid" is being demoted to just "David" for obvious reasons.
  • $50 per annum.

    Because they're worth it.
  • We don't need Gandalf increasing the national debt.

    • Amazon Prime has 177 Million paid subscribers. $465 Billion comes out to a mere $3,974 per viewer. Less than a weekend at a Disney Park. /s

  • The combined length of the extended version of Peter Jackson Trilogy comes to about 12 hours. 281M/12 = 23.42M/hour
    If you figure 20 one hour episodes for 465M, then 465M/20 = 23.25M/hour.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )

      The combined length of the extended version of Peter Jackson Trilogy comes to about 12 hours. 281M/12 = 23.42M/hour If you figure 20 one hour episodes for 465M, then 465M/20 = 23.25M/hour.

      20 episodes seems highly unlikely, given that vast majority of modern shows made for streaming only have 6-10 episodes per season. Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, the Mandalorian, Boba Fett, any of the Marvel series, etc.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        From the first linked article: Shippey also revealed that there will be 20 episodes inn the series’ first season.. The second article says, "at least 6 episodes", so while there's uncertainty, 20 episodes does not appear to be "highly unlikely".

        BTW, Game of Thrones was not originally "made for streaming"; it was scheduled programming on HBO.

        • Is Amazon going to just drop the full season for this? They did not do that for the Wheel of Time. We had to wait for it every Thursday night. Still waiting on the second season even though watching the show also kills me a bit at the same time. Books are so much better.

  • I like the fact (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @03:30PM (#62670382)
    that Amazon has so much money that when I saw "465B" in the title I didn't immediately think "that can't be right".

  • Although LOTR is quite a long series lol.

  • I liked the Tolkein series, but why must the entertainment industry re-hash it over and over and over and over? How may "and overs" is this now anyway?

    Yes, I know "because it makes them money". Well, I won't be watching this. I'll be watching something more original instead. And so should we all.

    --PM

    • this is not a remake of LOTR, it's a prequel.

      • How much do you want to bet that you have to be a Tolkien expert to even notice that there is a difference?

        • If you watched the 6 movies already made and remotely paid attention, it should be quite different then what we get with this new series. Oh sure, we will have good guys and bad guys doing sword fights and traveling around and having dialogue, but what else did you want?

          Nothing is all that unique if you really want to boil it down to a literary device. The same stories are retold all the time. A great example:

          Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai and Avatar all had the exact same story and yet some how Dance

          • And what exactly has Avatar in common with Last Samurai? I guess you mixed something up.

            • I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the same story, but, someone spends time with people (or beings, in case of Avatar) of a completely different culture and learns to understand their ways, and is in turn accepted by them.

              • That's basically the same. They are sent to be near another "hostile" culture. They learn and eventually decide the new culture is awesome and the old culture is wasteful, bloated, decadent, anything negative you can think about the "West". Then they eventually take part in a resistance or otherwise fight back against the old culture and win, at least for the time being.

                There are some slightly different details for each movie but that's basically what all three movies are about.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      I liked the Tolkein series, but why must the entertainment industry re-hash it over and over and over and over?

      It would have been nice if they actually rehash the original story, but no, it would be a completely different story just with characters having the same names as the original.

      Just look at what Amazon did to the Wheel of Time. I will totally avoid watching this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Is there anything original anymore? All ideas have been taken!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      I gave up one year when I went to a cinema (I had got a free ticket as part of a deal, hadn't been for years), and literally every option playing that week was a sequel or remake. Every. Single. One.

      From Movie 2 up to - in at least two cases - SIX.

      It was at that point that I realised that all I really need is a media centre at home, a projector, screen and a popcorn maker. Infinitely better experience, even if only because of "pause" and that I only put the movies I actually like on the box (so I literal

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Bored of the Rings.

      From everything I've seen of this series so far.. It's going to be.. Not very good.

    • I liked the Tolkein series, but why must the entertainment industry re-hash it over and over and over and over? How may "and overs" is this now anyway?

      Yes, I know "because it makes them money". Well, I won't be watching this. I'll be watching something more original instead. And so should we all.

      --PM

      Problem is you spend a bunch of money and make an awesome show it still might flop [wikipedia.org] if you didn't manage to find enough of the right audience.

      But once you have that hype you can spend a bunch of money and if you make something great the audience is there and you'll have a hit. Of course, if it sucks it still might flop [wikipedia.org].

      There's still original stuff being made, but if you want it to get a big budget you'll need to wait for it's second incarnation.

  • Units (Score:3)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @04:07PM (#62670456) Homepage
    When I read the title I thought Jeff Bezos had sold the entire company just to make this series.
  • The chances that they follow any of Tolkien's writings for more than a 30 second scene every now and then is, is likely zero.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Of course, there aren't that many Second Age stories that I know of. As far as I know, it's pretty much Aldarion and Erendis and Akallabeth.

  • As long as maths holds true

  • I Won't Let Them Ruin Another One... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tempest_2084 ( 605915 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @04:56PM (#62670566)
    After seeing what they did with The Wheel of Time, I have absolutely no faith that their LotR series will be any better. I still have fond memories of LotR and I won't let Amazon ruin those.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      A lot of people are already primed to hate it for various political reasons, but for me I'm just not that into LOTR. I've read it and The Hobbit, they are okay, but the characters aren't particularly well written and the story is just average.

      LOTR is very important historically, it defined a lot of the modern fantasy tropes. So is Citizen Kane, but I don't think many modern viewers would be all that impressed by it now.

      I'll give this a watch but I'd be amazed it if somehow justified that kind of budget. It

    • What amazes me is I have a few friends that watched Wheel of Time and didn't find it a total piece of garbage with shithouse acting. I found most of it so cringeworthy that I really hope the second season gets canned.
      • That's the thing, even if you accept all the changes they made from the book (actually after the first episode or two it bares almost no resemblance to the books at all) it's still a bad series. No one on that show, with possible exception of the guy who plays Lan, can act. I don't know if they were going for looks over acting ability or what, but it's baaaad. It makes the acting in the Star Wars prequels look Oscar worthy.

  • I recall a scene in a movie where a person drove up the price of an item at auction and then revealed they hadn't brought any money to begin with.

    450 million is an insane amount and Amazon would never see a profit even if it had been a decent series instead of an offensive pile of crap.

  • I really hope they split the first episode into three movies to prolong the series!

  • ... combined budget for all three films was $281 million.

    The movies were filmed back-to-back so start-up costs don't apply to the sequels. Hollywood demands every movie make at least $400m, not just 300% ROI, which makes LoTR, a beacon of winner-takes-all capitalism. It's why so few Indie films are made. Amazon isn't demanding such riches from its work, so it is choosing little-known actors/actresses and concentrating on production values.

  • If this is drawn out (Score:3)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Sunday July 03, 2022 @06:59PM (#62670758)
    If the story in season 1 is drawn out over 20 or so episodes but could have been told in 3 or 4 I'm done with streaming companies and their crap. This happens all the time now and it's sad that I'm expecting this. Imagine that if you can, you fall asleep before the end of an episode of LoTR. If this happens you're an a-hole Bezos (well a bigger one any way).

    • If the story in season 1 is drawn out over 20 or so episodes but could have been told in 3 or 4 I'm done with streaming companies and their crap. This happens all the time now and it's sad that I'm expecting this. Imagine that if you can, you fall asleep before the end of an episode of LoTR. If this happens you're an a-hole Bezos (well a bigger one any way).

      Well Game of Thrones was best early on when it was drawing a story out over multiple seasons, and terrible at the end when what should have been seasons got compressed into a handful of episodes.

      It all depends on the execution, if you've got interesting characters and good actors then take your time. If all you have is plot then keep things chugging along.

  • Sooo? it's about Google then?

  • One of the things that makes LoTR and the movies so good, is the feeling of sclae, of hugeness. One aspect of that is that the movies are *long*.

    TV episodes aren't. More, every episode must end in a cliffhanger, and they are filled with mini-cliffhangers to allow the insertion of commercials. Not a great medium for LoTR.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      As someone who watched - for only the second time in my life(*) - LOTR movies the other night...

      You think they aren't filled with mini-cliffhangers every 20 minutes or so?

      It literally fades-to-black at critical moments all the time, then switches to either a flashback or other members of the fellowship. Pretty much as the book does, in fact.

      (*) I loved the LOTR books and subsequently can't stand the movies because of all the deviations from the books and the Hollywoodisation (Legolas surfing on a shield, e

  • Hopefully this will spur a revival of some decent LoTR Lego sets, which were retired after (iirc) 2013. Interestingly, for example, the 84 piece set of Gandalf’s little jaunt into The Shire sold for about $16, today it’s going for ~$139! Source: https://www.brickeconomy.com/s... [brickeconomy.com] There’s a demand for Middle Earth’s history, not just through film or a TV series. So hopefully Amazon/the production team doesn’t mess up this opportunity to build on this complex story and solidify

  • Haven't they read the AinulindalÃ, which is exactly "the beginning"?

  • As the details continue to get fleshed out on IMDB, one can see where Amazon thought they could save money: The writers. The show runners have almost no experience, apart from some uncredited writing for one of the recent (terrible) Star Trak movies. The rest of the writers have written handfuls of episodes for TV shows, some good, most meh. Jeff Bezos can spend all the eleventy bjillion space-bucks he wants on FX, costumes, props and sets, but it won't matter if the writing is shite. Just like the lac

  • We got lucky with the movies because Peter Jackson adored Tolkien and managed to get a studio behind his personal vision for the adaptations. That's obviously not going to happen here, and the scale of the investment guarantees it. It's gonna be a bunch of committees and consultants second- and third-guessing every little artistic decision, seeing what works best for their long-term franchising strategy and support for other Amazon properties, and every other kind of gross, soulless, creepy-crawly busines

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zkiwi34 ( 974563 )
      Jackson loved his version of Tolkien. He was more in tune with his own "Meet the Feebles" vibe, than anything Tolkien had done.
      • Two facts are true regardless of each other: (1) The studio didn't care whether or not Jackson loved Tolkien, but (2) he absolutely, positively did, and it shined very brightly in the films. The fans were incredibly lucky that project happened the way it did.

        It's very easy and fast to tell the difference between a labor of love and an act of prostitution when it comes to book adaptations. When a project is legitimately just about business, they won't spend five cents or five seconds pretending otherwis
  • I don't want to find out how it ends yet.

Slashdot Top Deals

White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship.

Close