Posted on 03/21/2018 7:50:31 AM PDT by Simon Green
And you thought Game of Thrones looked expensive.
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel will cost the company an estimated $500 million, according to Reuters.
The rights alone to a piece of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy franchise apparently cost the company $250 million. Amazon has made a deal for two seasons, and the production and marketing costs for both should total around another $250 million. This would make the LOTR project easily the most expensive TV series ever made.
In fact, it’s more than it cost Peter Jackson to make all three movies in his Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, at least, before their marketing costs (according to Box Office Mojo).
And the Amazon drama will have the additional challenge — some might say benefit — of not being a reboot of the familiar tale of Frodo and the One Ring. Instead, the Amazon project will be a prequel series based on Tolkien’s works with an as-yet-unreleased story line.
By comparison, HBO spends about $15 million per episode on GoT at this point — probably a bit more for the upcoming final season — plus marketing costs.
Last fall, former Amazon Studios head Roy Price declared the company was gunning for its own GoT: “I do think Game of Thrones is to TV as Jaws and Star Wars was to the movies of the 1970s. It’ll inspire a lot of people. Everybody wants a big hit and certainly that’s the show of the moment in terms of being a model for a hit.”
So help me, if they take the Numenor storyline and turn it into a “Resistance” parable, I will go all GEEK SMASH on them.
I’m feeling thin, Gandalf, sort of stretched,
Like a book made into three movies....
My worry is that if it is the Silmarillion, that book is more fantastic than LOTR (features gods), which means more CGI, which does not sound like a good thing to me.
Simple. Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV series of all time. Next year HBO will air the remaining 6 episodes and then that's it. It's done.
Amazon sees a built-in audience of GoT fans.
I hope they succeed. I love GoT and will greatly miss it. If Amazon can bring the same high quality to their program, it's a win-win for everyone.
Completely agree but I think I hold a higher opinion of The Lord of The Rings trilogy than you did. But the two Hobbit movies were just awful in my opinion.
When is it going to be available?
Joe Abercrombie s First Law series would make for a good if not grim series if done right.
A little something from The Silmarillion? Eru Ilúvatar and his dysfunctional family?
A better thing to do would be to show the pre-history of LOTR Tolkien provided in the back of the third book: the rise and banishment of Sauron, how the 5 wizards came about, how Gondor came to be (Elindel, etc.), Lothlorien. I found as interesting as LOTR.
“which means more CGI, which does not sound like a good thing to me.”
in the theater it’s not a good thing because it’s used as a substitute for story, character, acting and dialog. With series like Game of Thrones and The Expanse, it’s been used to very good effect, but only to set the backdrop for great story, great characters, good acting and good dialog. CGI has been used so badly so often that I’m always impressed at the rare occasions when it’s used well.
There will probably be a lot of nods to Black Douglas, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.
Guessing it will all soup down into one spectacular failure - it's been done before. People are tired of Star Wars now, just as Lucas feared.
The next implosion will be MCU and the Infinity Wars, you wait and see. The trailer is muck. There'll be a rush order on a Panther 2 and WW2 but a whole lotta behind-the-scenes cancels on the Thor/Cap/Spidey series.
How nihilistic of you.
Nuts... A tax gimmick? Money laundering?
Jackson's LOTR trilogy butchered several major characters to incoherence but I can watch the movies. I only saw one of the Hobbit movies and thought is was too horrible to view again.
I would love to buy a faithful rendition of Tolkien’s works. Hey movie makers, I’d spend beaucoup bucks!
Don’t believe in wizards, dragons, magic and the like.
Against my religion..................
Keep throwing money Bezos...
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