Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Amazon Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings has offered a first, official look at the series today — and more importantly, a premiere date: the highly anticipated prequel will premiere Friday, September 2, 2022. New episodes will drop weekly.
“The journey begins September 2, 2022 with the premiere of our original The Lord of the Rings series on Prime Video,” said Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios via a release provided to Decider. “I can’t express enough just how excited we all are to take our global audience on a new and epic journey through Middle-earth! Our talented producers, cast, creative, and production teams have worked tirelessly in New Zealand to bring this untold and awe-inspiring vision to life.”
Based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien, Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings is not an adaptation of the novels a la Peter Jackson’s much loved movie trilogy. Instead, this series is set in the Second Age of Middle-Earth, thousands of years before the events of both the Jackson movies, and The Hobbit trilogy.
To celebrate the wrap of the first season — they’ve been filming since February, 2020 with some breaks due to COVID — the show also released a first look picture showing the scope of the show… Though possibly not the whole scope, because as you might expect, there’s a massive number of actors anchoring the show, including (deep breath) Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Nazanin Boniadi, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.
Whew, can’t believe I remembered them all without checking! Cool! Here’s the pic:
The first two episodes of Lord of the Rings are directed by J. A. Bayona, with Wayne Che Yip directing another four, and Charlotte Brändström directing another two to round out the eight episode long first season. Developed by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, at a reported $1 billion price tag for a five season commitment, The Lord of the Rings may be the most expensive TV series ever made — though some others are giving it a run for its money. Literally.
Even without the familiar cast from the movies, there is one crucial element of The Lord of the Rings that won’t be changing for the new streaming show: the setting. The first season of the series, as mentioned earlier, has been filming in New Zealand, the cinematic home of Middle-Earth, since February, 2020, one of the few shows allowed to film there during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As Bilbo says, ‘Now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.’ Living and breathing Middle-earth these many months has been the adventure of a lifetime. We cannot wait for fans to have the chance to do so as well,” said Payne and McKay, again via statement.
Though the premiere of Season 1 is still a year and a month away, Prime Video picked it up for a second season back in November, 2019. That’s $400 million down, $600 million to go.
