We all knew The Lord of the Rings TV series was going to be expensive. We just didn’t know how crazily expensive it might get. Because, as SlashFilm reports, Amazon claims it will spend $465 million on the first season alone. The article also provides some helpful context: for comparison, the final season of Game of Thrones cost five times less, while the budget for Peter Jackson’s entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy was around $281 million.
Mind you; we don’t know yet if the first-season budget for The Lord of the Rings includes the price Amazon paid to J. R. R. Tolkien’s estate for adaptation rights. As we reported back in 2019, the corporation purchased them for $250 million. At the time, The Hollywood Reported speculated five seasons of the show might cost up to one billion dollars. At this rate, Amazon may even go over that number. Needless to say, the price tag is just one way Amazon is building hype for the series that was renewed while the production barely began.
According to an official synopsis, the series takes place thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It begins in the time of peace that will be disturbed by the re-emergence of an ancient evil in Middle-earth. There is currently no official premiere date for the series. However, it will most likely air sometime this year.
