Amazon to Spend $500 Million on First Two Seasons of LOTR TV Series

Reuters and TrustedReviews are reporting the Amazon, which spent $250 million to purchase the rights to produce a Lord of the Rings television show, is now preparing to spend an additional quarter billion dollars on the first one or two seasons of the show. The total price tag of the series (which hasn't even begun production) is thus at $500 million, far more than was spent on the production of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I for one am very excited to hear that Amazon is preparing to heavily invest in their LOTR property. It makes sense . . . the movies were insanely popular, and television series like Game of Thrones prove that there is a huge appetite for big-budget fantasy TV series. Of course, while more money generally means better specially effects, props, etc., we have yet to learn anything about who will be writing, directing, and acting in this film, so I'm still only cautiously optimistic about this whole LOTR venture. We're in uncharted territory here . . .

Later.

NewStatesman on the Amazon Lord of the Rings TV series

NewStatesman has an article by Rebecca Rideal about the new Amazon Lord of the Rings series. Rideal makes some excellent points about the risks and benefits of adapting Middle-earth material to a TV series format; however, I'm not sure she has a full grasp on the legal situation regarding the different Tolkien books . . . she suggests more than once that Amazon might mine the Silmarillion for material, even though it is not at all clear that the Tolkien Estate is prepared to release the film rights for that book.

Additionally, she trots out the "Lord of the Rings is racist" argument towards the end of the article, and suggests that Tolkien's world will need significant updating to bring it up to 21st century standards. To me this smacks of a lack of understanding regarding why Tolkien developed his Legendarium in the first place, but I'm too tired to open up that debate right now. I'll save it that for another post down the road.

Later.

Breaking: A New Digital Lord of the Rings Card Game from Fantasy Flight Interactive!

Back in 2011 I discovered Fantasy Flight Games and the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game. I was immediately captivated––the game provided the geeky fun of a collectible card game like Magic: the Gathering or the old Decipher Star Wars CCG, but set in Middle-earth. For several years (2011 to 2016) I collected the game avidly, before eventually (and very reluctantly) selling my collection for a variety of reasons (mainly lack of time and a lack of people to play with). I've missed the game since then, so I was thrilled when Fantasy Flight Games announced today that they are developing a digital version of the game that will be available for PC and mobile devices. Jump past the break to read more.