Iconic fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad's maps are looking for a new home.

In interesting news, the map collection of fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad is being digitised and is looking for an academic home.

Karen Wynn Fonstad was one of fantasy cartography's biggest names, best-known for her two editions of The Atlas of Middle-earth (1981, 1992). This was an attempt to create an atlas spanning the entire history of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy legendarium, including detailed maps of the lands explored in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. The revised edition drew on Unfinished Tales and the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series to flesh out the map collection. The Atlas had a lot of fans, with Christopher Tolkien writing warmly about its accuracy and Tolkien artist Alan Lee talking about how it was used as a reference for the making of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Mrs. Fonstad herself paid tribute to earlier pioneers of Middle-earth cartography, including Pauline Baynes' A Map of Middle-earth (1970), which had the advantage of enjoying feedback from Professor Tolkien himself, and Barbara Strachey's more contemporary Journeys Frodo: An Atlas of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1981).

Mrs. Fonstad also created other fantasy atlases, notably The Atlas of Pern (1984) based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, and The Atlas of the Land (1985), based on Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever sequence. She then collaborated with TSR, Inc. on the Dungeons & Dragons projects The Atlas of the Dragonlance World (1987) and The Forgotten Realms Atlas (1990). The Forgotten Realms Atlas remains, as far the creator of the Forgotten Realms world Ed Greenwood is concerned, definitive. Many of these maps, or portions thereof, were reused in later projects like video games and novels.

Mrs. Fonstad resumed work on real-world geographical projects and did not create any more fantasy maps, but she did write a proposal for a project called The Atlas of Narnia, based on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia sequence, including creating some sample maps. The Lewis Estate regrettably passed on the project.

Karen Wynn Fonstad passed away, far too young, in 2005 due to cancer. It was always a supreme regret of mine that she never got a chance to work on maps for more recent fantasy series such as The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire or The Malazan Book of the Fallen. My own Atlas of Ice and Fire website project was directly inspired by her work.

Mrs. Fonstad's son Mark, now an associate professor of geography at the University of Oregon, has spent recent weeks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Robinson Map Library, digitising the hundreds of maps from his mother's collection for legacy purposes. The work is incomplete and it will take several trips to complete the project. Once it's done, Mark will be looking for an academic institution to house both the physical and digital maps for future generations to enjoy. It looks like the never-before-seen maps from The Atlas of Narnia proposal will be included.

Splendid stuff, and it would be amazing if the digital collection was available somewhere for everyone to enjoy.

Wertzone Classics: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The lands of Middle-earth are threatened by the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron, who only needs to find the missing One Ring to become unstoppable. Through an unlikely chain of events, the Ring has fallen into the possession of Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit of the Shire. After Bilbo retires, the Ring falls into the possession of his cousin Frodo. Finally realising the true nature of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf tells Frodo he must travel to Sauron's stronghold of Mordor and climb the volcanic Mount Doom, the only place where the Ring can be destroyed.

Reviewing The Lord of the Rings is a bit like reviewing oxygen, or Star Trek. People are probably already going to have read it, or decided not to. I can't imagine there's too many people sitting on the fence over it. Still, having just reread the whole thing, reviewing it is only polite.

The Lord of the Rings began life as a sequel to J.R.R. Tolkien's children's novel, The Hobbit, originally published in 1937. The book rapidly spiralled out of Tolkien's control and foresight, becoming longer, darker and more epic. In truth, the book became more of a sequel to Tolkien's massive myth-cycle, the then-unfinished and unpublished Silmarillion (eventually published posthumously in 1977), adopting its epic themes but using the accessible relatability of the hobbits to make the book easier to swallow for a large audience. The Lord of the Rings was eventually published in three volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King) in 1954 and 1955.

The impact of The Lord of the Rings cannot be overestimated. It codified the entire category field of modern epic fantasy, and Tolkien's imitators and successors are legion, as are those consciously rejecting his influence and doing something completely different. With sales estimates running from around 150 million to almost 400 million (the confusion caused by the novel's division into one-volume, three-volume and even seven-volume editions, and vast numbers of pirate editions published globally since the book came out), The Lord of the Rings is one of the biggest-selling individual novels of all time and has spawned a multimedia empire of radio, film and TV adaptations (of wildly varying quality).

Cutting through all of this chaff, what of the novel itself? How does it hold up in 2023? The answer is very well indeed, and in some respects the novel has aged better than expected. The explosion of massive epic fantasy series with individual volumes sometimes longer than The Lord of the Rings in its entirety (achieved by Tad Williams and Brandon Sanderson, and almost so by George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss) has inverted the old criticism of the novel. Rather than overlong and ponderous, as it was felt to be by many in the 1960s and 1970s (when most SFF novels clocked in at well under 300 pages), it now feels spry and economical with its pacing. The fact Tolkien delivered a single novel that tells a massive, sweeping and complete story (even reading The Hobbit is not necessary) with almost a dozen POV characters and spanning difference races, countries and an entire war, with incredibly detailed worldbuilding (most of it created just for this book; relatively little was inherited from The Silmarillion, which took place in a different region of Middle-earth), is pretty remarkable by modern standards.

The book opens in the bucolic Shire and, despite later rewrites, this section never shakes off its origin point as The Hobbit II: Somewhere Else and Back Again, Probably. There's laughter and good cheer and a lot of light and humour. But the book switches almost on a dime when Gandalf tells Frodo of the One Ring and sinister dark-hooded Riders arrive in the Shire. The initial flight from Hobbiton to Bree, with Frodo accumulating his loyal friends and allies Samwise, Merry and Pippin, remains a masterclass of building tension. The book takes a longueur at Rivendell, but it feels earned and is important for establishing the stakes of the story and establishing the Fellowship. The remainder of the first part is Tolkien delivering one epic set-piece after another, from battling wolves on the slopes of the Misty Mountains to almost dying on the slopes of Caradhras to the transition through the Mines of Moria to the battle on Amon Hen that leads to the splitting of the Fellowship.

As Tolkien himself acknowledged many years later, The Fellowship of the Ring is very different to The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The first instalment is lighter, pacier and more focused on a small, likable band of heroes engaged in an adventure. The latter two parts split the Fellowship into smaller sub-groups and sees them allying with larger powers (the nations of Rohan and Gondor) to fight Sauron's armies on the battlefield, at Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields. Tolkien is superb at building tension and delivering epic speeches but seems disinclined to dwell on the horrors of warfare up-close: those used to Peter Jackson's multi-hour action sequences based on those battles may be surprised by how concisely Tolkien deals with them on the page. He is more interested in the story and what happens to his characters than filling his pages with carnage. These latter two volumes remain fascinating and enjoyable, but they are drier. The moments of humour and cheer become sparser and Tolkien's prose becomes more academic, higher and more remote.

Tolkien is also an underrated master of horror. Throughout The Lord of the Rings he adeptly deploys horror tropes to scare the bejesus out of the Fellowship and the reader. This can be seen with the Black Riders in the Shire, the barrow-wights near the Old Forest and the descent through the Black Pit of Moria, and in the later confrontations with the great spider, Shelob, and the Army of the Dead. As China Miéville once said, Tolkien also gives great monster. Between Shelob, the balrog, the cave trolls and wargs, the book is replete with excellently-designed terrors.

Ultimately our heroes achieve their goals but the novel continues for another 100 pages after that, with the hobbits returning home to find that the war has not spared the home front and they have to undertake a final quest, this time by themselves without their powerful allies. For Tolkien, the Scouring of the Shire was a vitally important part of the novel about how, after taking part in a war and experiencing trauma, you can never quite go home again. This gives The Lord of the Rings its bittersweet complexity: the war is won but the damage it wreaks on the winners - or survivors - is palpable.

The novel has its weak points. Tolkien is a skilled poet in the short form but a more awkward one at length, and the novel features several verses that go on for several pages. Whilst the novel overall packs a ton of story, character and theme into a thousand pages, it does have moments where it slows down dramatically and takes a few pages to get going again. In-depth psychological characterisation is not something that Tolkien is really interested in, along with modern ideas about when to signify POV switches. This is not to say there is no characterisation, and indeed the hobbits in particular go through impressive character growth as the book develops, but it's less obvious than in many modern novels. The greatest exception is Gollum, who is torn by competing internal forces through the book as he strives for redemption but is tempted by a return to villainy.

A more valid criticism (both modern and contemporary) is almost the complete lack of female characters: Tolkien himself had already (by this point) developed important female characters in The Silmarillion who have impressive agency and play important roles in the story (such as Lúthien, Morwen, Nienor and Melian), but in Lord of the Rings the sole female character of almost any note is Éowyn. Tolkien did write more material for Arwen, but removed most of her story to the appendices. Other female characters (Galadriel, Goldberry, Rosie Cotton) appear only fleetingly. This does add to the WWI-esque atmosphere that develops, with women as a symbol of aspiration and home, but it's probably the area where the novel has aged the most poorly.

The Lord of the Rings (*****) is a titanic presence in the field of fantasy: no other single novel is as influential in its genre, even if it's perhaps less dominant these days than it used to be. It's easy to dismiss or write it off as old-fashioned or outdated, but this would be a mistake. Tolkien delivers a huge story about fighting the forces of darkness, both the overt and the subtle, and overcoming internal trauma, in a manner that remains compelling. At its best, his prose is rich and engrossing and his descriptions impressive, although the prose does become drier as the novel proceeds and some later sections lack the flair and energy of earlier chapters. But overall The Lord of the Rings remains a towering achievement of the genre and one that is worth reading.

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Bear McCreary confirmed as THE RINGS OF POWER's composer, Howard Shore returning for the theme tune

Confirming news first leaked a year ago, Bear McCreary will be working on Amazon's Lord of the Rings prequel show The Rings of Power as its main composer, whilst the Lord of the Rings trilogy composer Howard Shore will return to pen the main theme tune.

McCreary's work on Battlestar Galactica was so acclaimed that he ended up performing to thousands of people in huge live shows.

McCreary rose to fame with his offbeat, atmospheric music for Battlestar Galactica. After working as an assistant on the 2003 mini-series he became the main composer for the show itself, staying with it all the way until its conclusion in 2009. He returned for spin-off shows and TV movies.

He also scored Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD, Black Sails, Outlander, See, Snowpiercer and Foundation in television, and worked on films including 10 Cloverfield Lane and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. His video game work includes God of War and its upcoming sequel, and Call of Duty: Vanguard. He won an Emmy in 2013 for his work on the soundtrack to Da Vinci's Demons.

Amazon has released two full tracks from the soundtrack today: "Galadriel" and "Sauron," which I assume will be the leitmotifs for those respective characters. This may also be a minor spoiler, confirming Sauron will show up in the first season. That might feel like a given (Sauron is involved in the span of time that the show covers), but there was some speculation that Sauron might not show up until later. Both tracks are very good.

Amazon releases full trailer for THE RINGS OF POWER

Amazon have released the first full-length trailer for it's upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel TV series, The Rings of Power.

The trailer opens with a brief glimpse of the island kingdom of Numenor before it cuts to images of Galadriel (Morfyyd Clark). We get a voiceover:

"There was a time when the world was so young, there had not yet been a sunrise, but even then there was light."

We see a young elf cresting a hill to behold an elven city in the land of Valinor beyond the western ocean, when the elves and the godlike Valar dwelt together in the Elder Days. Beyond the city are the two fabled Trees of Light, golden Laurelin and silver Telperion. In this age the sun and moon do not exist, with instead the Two Trees filling the lands of Valinor with light but leaving the rest of the world, including the central continent of Middle-earth, in darkness.

These are actually images from the Elder Days, long before even the Second Age where the bulk of the series will be set.

Over singing, we see vignettes of different people in Middle-earth (including a glimpse of a giant eagle), over which another character (a Harfoot briefly glimpsed in other trailers) speaks.

"Elves have forests to protect, dwarves their mines, men their fields of grain, but we Harfoots have each other. We're safe."

We see what appears to be Rivendell (or at least an elven city of some kind), Khazad-dum and fields of wheat being harvest by men whilst Harfoots travel through a nearby forest. A flaming meteor then plunges from the sky and crashes near Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), heralding darker days for Middle-earth.

We then see a frozen wasteland, where Galadriel and other elves are tracking down the last remnants of the orcs and other surviving servants of evil from the First Age. We hear in voiceover, "You have fought long enough, Galadriel."

We then move to another location where Elrond Halfelven (Robert Aramayo) asks Galadriel to put up her sword. Galadriel is unimpressed.

"The Enemy is still out there. The question now is, where?" Elrond declares, "It is over," but Galadriel responds, "You have not seen what I have seen." "I have seen my share." "You have not seen what I have seen."

We see Galadriel and her expedition pass through ice caves into some kind of fiery subterranean location, where they seem to encounter a great evil which inflicts suffering on the group.

An impressive aerial shot of an elven city follows. This is probably Mithlond, better known as the Grey Havens, the chief port of the elven nation of Lindon in the far north-west of Middle-earth.

We then see a ship pass into the harbours of Numenor, a great island located in the ocean south-west of Middle-earth. Given as a land of gift to those humans who took the elven cause in the First Age, Numenor is now at the centre of an empire that spans much of the known world, with colonies and holdings in lands far beyond Middle-earth. The only place that is denied to the Numenoreans is fabled Valinor to the west. This ban is calmly accepted by most Numenoreans...but not all.

We then cut to Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), High King of the Elves, speaking to Elrond: "Darkness will march over the face of the earth." We cut to an army of orcs on the march. "It will be the end of not just our people, but all peoples."

We see Galadriel on a ship, and the Queen Regent of Numenor, Tar-Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) being surprised by what seems to be ash or snow falling from the sky.

We then cut to Elanor and her friend Poppy Proudfoot (Megan Richards), looking at a Stranger (Daniel Weyman) who seems bewildered to find where he is.

Elrond then visits the great dwarven city of Khazad-dum (which in later centuries will be known as Moria), here in its prime. King Durin III (Peter Mullan, reportedly) says, "I am sorry, but their time has come." We then see Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) smashing a chunk of rock. We then see more of Galadriel's expedition getting into trouble on a glacier.

We then see Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) appearing in a public place in Numenor, the elven archer Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), a mass cavalry charge led by Galadriel, Harfoots embracing and Isildur (Maxim Baldry) on a Numenorean boat.

"The past is with us all. But the past is dead. We either move forward or we die with it."

We see Galadriel riding along the coast, a crowd in Numenor cheering the Queen's advisor Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle), a young man practicing his jousting and Prince Durin IV holding aloft a piece of metal (mithril?) and declaring, "This could be a new beginning of a new era."

We then see four elves drawing swords in what appears to be a council chamber, and Arondir fighting off a warg in a forest, followed by Galadriel fighting an ice troll.

We then see the Stranger climbing out of a circular crater of fire. The trailer ends with four Harfoots striking out across country.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts on 2 September on Amazon Prime.

Amazon releases new teaser for THE RINGS OF POWER

Amazon have released a new teaser for their upcoming Middle-earth TV series, The Rings of Power. The clip is available only on Amazon's website, here for the US and here for the UK.

The clip opens with the camera panning over majestic shots of Middle-earth before cutting to Sadoc Burrows (Sir Lenny Henry), a senior member of the Harfoots, a wandering tribe of Hobbits (this is thousands of years before they settle the Shire). After studying ancient books, he announces, "the skies are strange."

We then see a meteor hurtling through the skies above Middle-earth, where it is seen by many people: Gil-galad, High King of the Elves (Benjamin Walker), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Prince Durin IV of Moria (Owain Arthur), Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), elven archer Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), his lover Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), Tar-Míriel of Númenor (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and several Ents. 

The meteor finally crashes to the ground near another Harfoot, Elanor "Nori" Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), who seems curious and decides to investigate. A final shot follows, apparently of a ship sailing into one of the harbours of Númenor.

The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth and, as the title indicates, tells the story of the forging of the Rings and the descent from a golden age of relative peace and prosperity into war as evil returns. 

A longer trailer for the series will be released on 14 July and the series itself will debut on 2 September.

New Middle-earth book announced for 2022

A new Middle-earth book is on its way. The Fall of Númenor will be published on 10 November 2022 and will recount the events of the Second Age of Middle-earth, accompanied by new artwork by popular Tolkien artist Alan Lee.

The book will be published an impressive forty-nine years after the death of J.R.R. Tolkien and almost three years after the death of his son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien, who had been entrusted with the maintenance of his father's legacy after his death. Christopher published almost every single word his father ever wrote on Middle-earth, from the semi-complete story of The Silmarillion through numerous early drafts, incomplete short stories and esoteric worldbuilding essays on the most minor facets of live in Middle-earth. Much of this material was assembled in the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series and books like Unfinished Tales. A further volume, The Nature of Middle-earth, was published in 2021 with Carl F. Hostetter as editor. This book included more previously unpublished material by J.R.R. Tolkien and was produced with Christopher Tolkien's permission and approval.

This volume appears to contain no "new" information in the form of previously-unpublished material by Tolkien. Instead, it appears to contain all the narratives that Tolkien wrote about the Second Age, assembled into one handy volume. This will likely include The Akallabêth, the closing part of The Silmarillion dealing with the fate of the island kingdom of Númenor; the "Second Age" section of Unfinished Tales which contains an incomplete short story, "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife," as well as a detailed genealogy of the kings and queens of Númenor and a map of the island; and the "Second Age" material from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. There is also some material in the History of Middle-earth series which may be included.

The book is clearly intended as a tie-in with Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power television series, which is set in the Second Age and is concerned with elements including the forging of the One Ring and the rise and fall of Numenor. That TV show hits screens on 2 September.

The Fall of Numenor is not the first "greatest hits" repackaging of material from less-accessible, scholarly works into an easier-to-read format. Christopher Tolkien himself re-edited material from those books into three narrative tomes aimed at the layman: The Children of Húrin (2007), Beren and Lúthien (2017) and The Fall of Gondolin (2018). The Fall of Númenor follows in that tradition.

The book is edited by Tolkien scholar and expert Brian Sibley, who previously wrote the early 1980s BBC radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and served as a consultant on the Peter Jackson movie trilogy, penning several of the tie-in "making of" books, returning in that capacity for the later Hobbit trilogy. He also wrote the booklets accompanying John Howe's "maps of Middle-earth" series in the 1990s.

This book does mark a minor bit of history in Tolkien publishing, being apparently the first Middle-earth book to have been assembled and published without the permission or approval of either J.R.R. or Christopher Tolkien (although I suspect the latter would not have been entirely opposed, given his previous work). Tolkien fans will now be wondering what the future may hold in terms of similar "fixup" works being put together from other sources.

Miranda Otto returning to LORD OF THE RINGS as Eowyn

Lord of the Rings veteran Miranda Otto is returning to the franchise and will reprise her role as Eowyn in the upcoming animated film, The War of the Rohirrim. Eowyn will serve as the film's narrator.

Otto played the role of Eowyn in Peter Jackson's original movie trilogy, gaining considerable acclaim for her performance. The new film is set over 180 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings story.

Brian Cox (Succession, Deadwood, Troy) and Gaia Wise (A Walk in the Woods, Silent Witness) are also starring in the film, Cox playing Helm Hammerhand and Wise his daughter, Hera. Luke Pasqualino (Shadow and Bone, Our Girl, The Musketeers) is playing Wulf. The cast also includes Jude Akuwudike, Lorraine Ashbourne, Shaun Dooley, Janine Duvitski, Bilal Hasna, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Michael Wildman and Laurence Ubong Williams.

The film is executive produced by Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Artists Alan Lee and John Howe and Weta effects guru Richard Taylor are also attached to the project. Peter Jackson is not officially involved, but has acted as an unofficial consultant on the project. Kenji Kamiyama is directing.

The project is the source of some controversy, having been put into production to allow Warner Brothers to retain their movie rights to the Lord of the Rings franchise. However, that is disputed by the Saul Zaentz Company, who inherited the rights that J.R.R. Tolkien sold in 1969 and licensed them to New Line in 1997 (Warner Brothers later acquired New Line). According to the Saul Zaentz Company, the deal required production of a live-action film to start within a certain amount of time once the previous movie (2014's The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies) had been released. An animated film did not fit the bill. Warner Brothers dispute that requirement, and the two companies have been in arbitration on the issue for some months.

The new project is not related to the upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel television series, The Rings of Power, which is being produced under a separate deal between Amazon Television, the Tolkien Estate and Warner Brothers. It is understood, though, that if Warner Brothers is unsuccessful in keeping the film rights, Amazon would be very interested in acquiring them.

RIP Priscilla Tolkien

News has sadly broken that Priscilla Tolkien, the only daughter and youngest child of J.R.R. Tolkien, has passed away at the age of 92.

Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien was born on 18 June 1929 to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his wife Edith. She had three older brothers, John (1917-2003), Michael (1920-84) and Christopher (1924-2020). Her father read The Hobbit to her brothers as it gestated in the early 1930s, and later on to her before it was published in 1937. During the gestation of The Lord of the Rings, Priscilla helped her father by typing up some of the manuscript as it developed (Tolkien wrote his first drafts in longhand). Tolkien initially named the protagonist of the book "Bingo" after a stuffed bear Priscilla owned; he later changed it to Frodo.

Priscilla noted her father's "complete belief in higher education for girls; never in my early life or since did I feel that any difference was made between me and my brothers, so far as our educational needs and opportunities were concerned."

She gained a degree in English from Oxford University and worked as a social worker and probation officer. In August 1955, after Tolkien completed (at great stress) the revisions to The Return of the King, Priscilla took him on holiday to Italy, where he became enamoured of Venice.

After her father died in 1973, Priscilla was named as a board member of the Tolkien Estate. She became more active in the nascent fandom and scholarship surrounding her father's work. She contributed to the Tolkien Society and its periodicals Amon Hen and Mallorn, and served as the Vice-President of the Tolkien Society for many years (her later father is the President in perpetuo). She was a frequent guest at the Oxonmoot literary event.

Around 1977 she agreed to meet with Ralph Bakshi, who was producing an animated film based on The Lord of the Rings, and gave her approval to his concept art. The same year she gave a speech to celebrate the release of The Silmarillion: "From my earliest years I recall my father telling me stories at bedtime, and in the darkened room as I was falling asleep I have a vivid memory of him retelling the story of Rapunzel and of how her prince sang to her at the foot of the tower where she imprisoned, telling her to let down her golden hair. This was brought back to my mind when reading the Tale of Beren and Luthien...In The Silmarillion we have many shorter tales woven into one large tale of Creation and History...It was possible for my father to conceive stories on both the grand and on the samll scale, and to have his imagination nourished by both the simplest fairy-tale and by great stories of the World."

In 1992 she co-published The Tolkien Family Album with her brother John. She also took part in commemorations of the centenary of Tolkien's birth in the same year. Like most of the family, she offered no commentary on the success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy in 2001-03, but joined with the rest of the Estate in suing Warner Brothers for failure to pay royalties and trying to sell licences they had no right to, particularly related to gambling. After Christopher Tolkien's death in January 2020, she became the oldest and most senior member of the Tolkien Estate.

With Christopher Tolkien living in France for most of his life, Priscilla Tolkien became the more engaged of the family in the various fan groups and appreciators of her father's work. Well-known to be welcoming, charming and gracious, she will be missed.

Feature film LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM set for April 2024 release, whilst Warner Brothers fights for the franchise film rights

With all the excitement over Amazon's Rings of Power TV series, it's easy to forget there's another cinematic slice of Tolkien also in production. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is an animated film set roughly 250 years before the events of the movie trilogy and depicts the adventures of Helm Hammerhand, a legendary king of Rohan and the builder of the great fortress of Helm's Deep.

The film was announced last year, with Kenji Kamiyama directing for Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema and Sola Entertainment. Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote and produced the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie trilogies, is producing. Her daughter Phoebe Gittins and writing partner Arty Papageorgiou have written the script. Richard Taylor and John Howe, who worked on the art design for the previous live-action Middle-earth movies, are doing the same for this project. Peter Jackson has given the project his blessing.

However, a Variety article seemingly backs up speculation that the primary reason for making the film is so Warner Brothers can retain its hold on the franchise feature film rights, which they licenced from the Saul Zaentz Company in 1997 to enable production of the Peter Jackson films. Last week, the Saul Zaentz Company confirmed it had regained control of the film rights, which they claim lapsed in 2020, and are now putting them up for sale with a reported price of $2 billion. Warner Brothers are reportedly extremely unhappy about this and are in negotiations with the Saul Zaentz Company. If there is not a satisfactory resolution, legal action may follow.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will hit theatres on 12 April, 2024.

LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER unveils its first trailer

The first trailer for Amazon Prime TV's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has dropped during the American Super Bowl.

The new series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth. It tells a multi-stranded story, including the adventures of familiar faces like Galadriel and Elrond in (relatively) younger days, completely new characters and characters from Tolkien's books like Celebrimbor, the forger of (most of) the Rings of Power, the proud elven king Gil-galad and, of course, Sauron.

The trailer suggests a strong visual connection with the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, with similar designs for the island empire of Númenor (from which the kingdom of Gondor was founded) and the elves.

The trailer opens with someone asking, "Haven't you ever wondered what else is out there? There's wonders in this world beyond our wandering." The speaker is Markella Kavenagh's character, a Harfoot named Elanor "Nori" Brandyfoot. The Harfoots are a tribe of primitive, nomadic Hobbits who have wandered into the west of Middle-earth, thousands of years before their descendants eventually settle the Shire.

The first image we see is of a grand harbour, almost certainly that of a port city on the island of Númenor (the statue in the harbour appears to be that of Númenor's founder, King Elros Tar-Minyatur, the brother of Elrond). Númenor is the ancient island superpower from which is descended the line of the kings of Gondor. The camera then passes over hilly plains similar to those of Rohan (and, indeed, may be the same plains for all we know). We briefly see two hunters on the plains as the terrain gives way to wooded ravines. The camera then cuts to an immense waterfall plummeting over a frozen landscape in the Forodwaith, in the far north of Middle-earth. Several figures are trying to climb an icy cliff face, one of whom appears to be a younger Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). We then see a raft being battered in the stormy seas, with a single man on board, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers).

We see an exchange of arrows in a forest at night, with the elven warrior Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) plucking enemy arrows out of the air and firing them back at their source (the sort of move we can imagine Legolas approving of). We see a flaming meteor in the skies whilst the elven high king Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) watches on. We then see Galadriel galloping on horseback across green fields next to spectacular mountains. We see a cloaked figure fighting off a horrendous monster of unknown origin. We see numerous elves gathered around a tree next to a waterfall above a lake, probably in Lindon. The trailer then cuts to brief images of Prince Durin of Khazad-dûm (Owain Arthur), Lord Elrond (Robert Aramayo), the dwarven Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete) singing a dwarven song designed to sense riches below the ground, Galadriel on the same raft from earlier having her elvish ears exposed, what appears to be Elanor helping a man known only as "The Stranger" (Daniel Weyman) in a burning environment, a dwarf smashing a rock to pieces, a fierce battle between elven warriors led by Finrod Felagund (Will Fletcher) and orcs, a chained Arondir attempting to escape, and a human hand clasping that of a Harfoot, almost certainly "The Stranger" and Elanor.

Title cards read "Before the king, before the Fellowship, before the Ring, a new legend begins this fall."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts on 2 September this year.

First pictures, plot and character details emerge about LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER

Vanity Fair has the inside scoop on Amazon's bank-flattening Tolkien TV series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, revealing new plot and character information about the series along with exclusive images and confirming some of the show's cast.

Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) meet in the elven kingdom of Lindon.

The article confirms that the show is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. The story is set after the defeat of the Dark Lord Morgoth at the end of the War of the Jewels and the destruction of the western lands of Beleriand. The surviving elves have established new kingdoms in the north-west of Middle-earth, most notably the coastal kingdom of Lindon and the inland nation of Eregion. Their human allies from the war have been given a great gift, a new island home in the midst of the Sundering Seas, Númenor. Over the intervening centuries Númenor has become a powerful island nation, sending its ships to explore every corner of the world. Likewise, the dwarves have established new holdings and reestablished contact with old ones, such as the great subterranean empire of Khazad-dûm, lying beneath the Misty Mountains (and whose dusty ruins will one day be explored by the Fellowship of the Ring, when it is known as Moria).

Despite the defeat of Morgoth, evil has not left Middle-earth. Morgoth's lieutenant, Sauron, is missing, presumed destroyed, and some of his fell followers, including orcs and trolls, remain a problem. It is probably not a massive spoiler to reveal that Sauron (not, at this point, a flaming giant eyeball) is not dead and is plotting a comeback involving the forging of some rather familiar hand-ornaments...

The story of the Second Age is not relayed in any novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, but in historical summaries at the end of The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) and an essay called The Akallabeth, which is published at the end of Tolkien's mythic account of the wars of the First Age, The Silmarillion (1977). Additional essays, such as a detailed lineage of the Kings and Queens of Númenor, an incomplete short story about a Númenorean mariner-king and a character study of the elven leaders Galadriel and Celeborn can all be found in Tolkien's Unfinished Tales (1980). But these accounts only reveal the grand, over-arcing history of the time period, omitting the close-up details. The writing team, led by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, has taken advantage of this to create a narrative that both explores the unfolding main narrative but also introduce a host of new characters who will be our eyes and ears into these epic events.

The character list includes some familiar names: Galadriel and Elrond are key and important characters who play a major role in The Lord of the Rings. As the show is set thousands of years before the novels and earlier Peter Jackson film trilogy, these roles have been recast with younger actors. Characters who appeared briefly in the film trilogy, such as the Númenorean king Elendil and his son and heir Isildur (who both briefly appear in the prologue to the first movie), will play a larger role here, and of course Sauron will be the chief (but not sole) threat.

Most of the characters will be new. A young elven warrior named Arondir has found love with a human woman, something this forbidden by his culture. A mysterious human named Halbrand strikes up an alliance with Galadriel after they are both shipwrecked in a storm. Prince Durin, the heir to Khazad-dûm, has to navigate a difficult path.

Showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have relatively few credits, but were recommended for the job by J.J. Abrams, who'd worked with them on the script for Star Trek Beyond (2016). The two writers also had a take on the Second Age story that excited Amazon. The showrunners quickly assembled an experienced writing team including Gennifer Hutchison (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Jason Cahill (The Sopranos, Fringe) and Stephany Folsom (Toy Story 4, Thor: Ragnarok), whilst director J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) was assigned to produce and direct the first two episodes.

There is one major deviation with this show from the source material. In Tolkien's works, the major events of the Second Age are largely compressed into two time periods, one revolving around the forging of the Rings of Power and the resulting war between Sauron and the elves, during which Numenor makes its presence felt, and another period some fifteen centuries later when the Númenoreans capture and imprison Sauron on their home island, leading to an apocalyptic series of events culminating in the War of the Last Alliance (which opened the original move trilogy). Here the two time periods have been collapsed into one period, presumably lasting a few years or decades.

This isn't completely unprecedented - Jackson collapsed a seventeen-year time gap in the opening chapters of The Lord of the Rings into a few weeks - but the scale here is extreme, with most of the second half of the Second Age being erased. This already seems to be the most contentious change, when the writers could have either instead used a flashback framing device or multiple timelines, or simply done a mid-series time jump. How successful it is remains to be seen.

Confirmed Cast of Characters

• Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), a much younger version of the character played by Cate Blanchett in the original trilogy. Galadriel is younger, prouder and perhaps less measured than in the Third Age. A senior leader of the elves of Middle-earth, she is utterly opposed to the machinations of the Dark Lord Sauron but is tempted by the trappings of power.
• Elrond (Robert Aramayo), a younger version of the character played by Hugo Weaving in the original movie trilogy. Elrond Half-elven has forsaken his human heritage to become a senior leader of the elves of Middle-earth, standing as advisor to the elven High King, Gil-galad.
• Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), one of the highest-ranking elven survivors from the War of the Jewels. Founder and ruler of the inland elven kingdom of Eregion, which borders the dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dum. Celebrimbor is a master-smith driven by pride and the desire to forge the most beautiful artifacts ever created. Unfortunately, his pride is something that can be manipulated and used against him.
• Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a silvan elf warrior who finds a forbidden love with Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), the healer of the village of Tirharad.
• Prince Durin (Owain Arthur), the future King Durin IV, heir to the dwarven throne of Khazad-dûm, which in later ages would be known as Moria. 
• Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete) of Khazad-dûm.
• Isildur (Maxim Baldry), a young nobleman of Númenor.
• Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a human fleeing from his own past.
• A Harfoot Elder (Sir Lenny Henry), a leader of the harfoot people, an early tribe of Hobbits who have come west centuries before the rest of their kin. Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh play two harfoot youngsters who encounter a "mysterious lost man" whose identity becomes a key mystery in the story (Kavenagh's character may be called Tyra).

Rumoured Cast

• Joseph Mawle and Simon Merrells are playing new (?) characters called Adar and Trevyn. Adar is an antagonist.
• Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker), High King of the Elves in Middle-earth, overlord of Lindon and the senior-most elven leader in Middle-earth.
• Carine (Ema Horvath), Isildur's sister and a young noblewoman of Númenor.
• Elendil (Lloyd Owen), a nobleman of Númenor, father of Isildur and Carine and a kinsman of the king.
• Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle), a royal prince of Númenor.

The first episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is called Shadow of the Past and will debut on 2 September 2022 on Amazon Prime worldwide. The first trailer for the show will air on Sunday during the US Super Bowl.

Saul Zaentz Company to sell its LORD OF THE RINGS screen and merchandising rights

The Saul Zaentz Company is to sell its long-standing screen and merchandising rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's work, which it has held since 1976.

United Artists struck a deal with J.R.R. Tolkien in 1968 to secure the screen rights to Tolkien's novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), along with related merchandising rights. Tolkien had been reluctant to sell the screen rights, but had wanted to secure a legacy for his children and, in particular, to provide for the education of his grandchildren. United Artists worked on several prospective movie projects over the next decade, most notably a live-action collaboration with John Boorman which ultimately did not reach the screen (during research, Boorman developed ideas which led to his 1981 Arthurian movie Excalibur instead).

In 1976 United Artists decided to sell some of its rights to Tolkien's works to raise funds for more original projects. Film producer Saul Zaentz, fresh from the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, acquired the full rights to The Lord of the Rings and the production rights to The Hobbit; United Artists held onto the distribution rights to The Hobbit, figuring that any film adaptation would want to start with the earlier novel (these rights were later acquired by MGM when they bought United Artists). This led Zaentz to produce an animated version of the first half of The Lord of the Rings in 1978 with director Ralph Bakshi; the film was not successful enough to allow a sequel to be produced.

Zaentz established a new company called Tolkien Enterprises to handle the rights he'd acquired; the name was later changed to Middle-earth Enterprises to avoid confusion with the Tolkien Estate. Tolkien Enterprises entered into licencing and merchandising deals for various merchandise related to the property, including video games and a tabletop roleplaying game from Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE). In 1997, Zaentz entered into an agreement with New Line Cinema for a new, live-action film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, to be directed by Peter Jackson. Released as three movies between 2001 and 2003, the the trilogy made $3 billion at the box office and was critically acclaimed.

Zaentz continued to benefit from various licencing deals related to the books and films. Several years later, a complex deal was worked out between New Line, their new owners Warner Brothers and Hobbit rights-holders MGM to produce a film series based on The Hobbit. This trilogy was released between 2012 and 2014 to financial success, but a much more muted critical reception. Zaentz died in January 2014, shortly after the release of the second film in the trilogy.

Zaentz's death and the subsequent reversion of the live-action film rights from New Line to the Zaentz Company in 2020 seems to have spurred the company's decision to sell. The package includes the live-action film rights to The Lord of the Rings in full, the production rights to The Hobbit, spin-off merchandising rights to both properties (including tabletop games, video games, miniatures), theme park rights and rights related to live events based on both novels. The package is expected to raise at least $2 billion before any potential bidding begins.

The logical home for the rights is Amazon. Amazon reached a deal with New Line and Warner Brothers in 2017 as part of their project to bring a Lord of the Rings-branded television series to the air, boosted by an unprecedented $250 million deal with the Tolkien Estate granting them certain limited rights to other Tolkien writings (believed to incorporate strictly-limited rights to Tolkien's posthumous works The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales). Amazon subsequently acquired MGM, meaning they also now own the distribution rights to The Hobbit. Acquiring the Saul Zaentz Company's rights would reunite the full rights to The Hobbit for the first time since 1976, and would also clear the way for Amazon to helm any future remake of the films.

Amazon entered production on its Middle-earth prequel television series, The Rings of Power, in February 2020. The series, which has become the most expensive single television series ever made, is expected to debut its first trailer during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The show is currently scheduled to hit the air on 2 September this year.

It's possible other companies might also be interested in the deal, with Warner Brothers likely keen to investigate following their production (via subsidiary New Line) of the six successful live-action Middle-earth movies to date. Warner Brothers are also currently developing an animated Middle-earth movie, War of the Rohirrim, and that project entered production early enough to not be affected by this reversion of rights. However, the likely high price tag may dissuade Warner Brothers, or encourage them to enter into a partnership with Amazon over future possible projects.

LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER will drop its first trailer on Sunday

Amazon have confirmed that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will drop its first trailer this coming Sunday, during the Super Bowl. This will be the first footage seen of the series, which began filming in Auckland, New Zealand almost exactly two years ago.

It is likely this will be a relatively brief teaser trailer rather than more in-depth footage. The show will not debut on Amazon until 2 September this year, so this is a continuation of the slow-burn marketing that kicked off in January with the unveiling of the show's title and continued last week with the unveiling of twenty-three posters for the show, each focusing on a different character (whose identity is obscured).

The Rings of Power is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, more than three thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, and will tell a number of different stories from different points in the Age's history. These include the forging of the Rings of Power by the elven-smiths of Eregion, led by Celebrimbor, and the rise to glory and power of the mighty island kingdom of Numenor, the distant ancestors of characters like Aragorn and Denethor. Familiar Lord of the Rings characters like Isildur, Galadriel, Sauron and Elrond are expected to play key roles (albeit with new actors compared to the Peter Jackson movie trilogy), although the bulk of the characters and subplots are expected to be new.

Unlike Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie trilogies, this new work is not based directly on a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. Instead it draws on material about the Second Age and Numenor scattered through Tolkien's writings, including the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, a history in The Silmarillion and several stories, lineages and a map presented in Unfinished Tales. This series marks the first time that material from Tolkien or Middle-earth works other The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have ever been adapted, the result of an unprecedented $250 million deal between Amazon and the Tolkien Estate.

The Rings of Power is comfortably the most expensive ongoing television series ever made, with even the most conservative estimates putting a budget of $30 million per episode on it, twice that of the last two seasons of Game of Thrones. Some estimates suggest that Amazon have spent almost double that figure, which would mean that the show is having more money spent on it per-hour than Jackson's movie trilogy, even adjusted for inflation. Even for Amazon's effectively infinitely deep pockets, this is a huge project and much of the show's future television strategy hinges on it being a major success.

A second season of the show has already been commissioned and is expected to start shooting next month, although production has been moved from New Zealand to the United Kingdom for the second year.

LORD OF THE RINGS prequel TV series finally gets a name: THE RINGS OF POWER

Amazon Prime's extremely expensive Lord of the Rings prequel TV series has a title. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will launch later this year and will cover events in the Second Age of Middle-earth's history, more than 3,000 years before the events of the novels and existing films.

The title is a little unwieldy - the popular fan alternate choices of The Second Age or The Last Alliance are catchier - and somewhat redundant, but at least it's a relief to be able to give the thing a proper name at last.

The Rings of Power is set in the latter part of the Second Age, when the mighty island empire of Numenor became the most powerful nation in the world and even the Dark Lord Sauron, wielding the power of the One Ring, was unable to match it. It sounds like the show may feature significant flashbacks to earlier in the Age, when the elven-smith Celebrimbor was tricked by Sauron into forging the Rings of Power, by which means Sauron gained influence over the races of men and dwarves before forging the One Ring himself.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will launch worldwide on Amazon on 2 September 2022.

Amazon's LORD OF THE RINGS TV series chooses Bray Studios as its base of operations

Amazon's Lord of the Rings prequel television series has found its new home. After shooting the first season in Auckland in New Zealand, the second season sees the show basing itself at Bray Studios, Berkshire, just west of London.

The studio was built in 1951 by Hammer Film Productions, who were developing an old country manor estate overlooking the River Thames. The studio expanded rapidly, with Columbia coming on board in 1959 to co-develop the property. The studio was divided into different areas, with the BBC doing vfx work for Doctor Who in one area. In 2014 it was announced that the studio would close and be demolished, to be replaced by flats, in the face of fierce competition from Pinewood and Shepperton. However, although some redevelopment took place, the soundstages were saved and shooting resumed there in 2019, as other UK studio facilities had been maxed out and Bray was suddenly in demand once more.

Projects shot at Bray include the Quatermass movies, Space: 1999, a huge number of Hammer Horror movies, Poirot, Dracula, Ali G Indahouse and Terrahawks.

The UK and New Zealand were previously in fierce competition to host the Lord of the Rings project, with the UK presenting a convincing argument for basing shooting in Scotland. However, New Zealand won out due to better tax incentives and more impressive scenery. It was therefore a surprise when Amazon announced in August that the second season of the show would shoot in the UK instead. It was assumed that Scotland would again be the front-runner, although since the original presentation a whole host of projects have set up north of the border, including Amazon's own Good Omens (shooting at the moment) and Anansi Boys. Being based at Bray would still allow the production to shoot elsewhere in the UK, of course.

Additional shooting will also take place at Bovingdon Airfield. The former RAF base has frequently been used as a location for large-scale, outdoor shooting, appearing in projects such as The Prisoner and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Other fantasy shows are also eating up studio space in the UK: HBO's House of the Dragon has set up at the Warner Brothers Studios in Leavesden, whilst Netflix's The Witcher has taken over Arborfield Studios (not far from Bray).

Amazon's Lord of the Rings project is expected to debut on Amazon Prime Video on 2 September 2022. Production is about to begin on the second season.

Howard Shore & Bear McCreary in talks to join LORD OF THE RINGS prequel series as composers

Deadline has broken a story that will have many people cheering: Howard Shore, who scored all six of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth movies, is in talks to join the Amazon Lord of the Rings prequel series set in the Second Age as composer.

Fellowship of Fans has backed up the story and gone further to say that Shore actually signed on several months ago and is already working on the project. They also claim that Bear McCreary will also work on the show's music. McCreary is best known for his work on the 2003 version of Battlestar Galactica, as well as The Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD, Outlander and the God of War video game series. McCreary's involvement has so far not been backed up by any other sources.

Shore joining the project will be well-received news by fans. Shore's work on the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy remains outstanding, netting him four Oscar nominations and three wins: Best Original Score for The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King, and Best Song for "Into the West." He received a fifth nomination for his score to the movie Hugo. His other film work includes The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Philadelphia and Seven.

Amazon recently wrapped filming on the first season of the series, which will premiere on Amazon Prime on 2 September 2022. A second season is in pre-production and is due to start shooting in January.

Amazon reveals LORD OF THE RINGS TV show release date...but still no title

Amazon have revealed the release date for their upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel TV series. The show will launch on 2 September 2022, exclusively on Amazon Prime Television.

The date will be disappointing to those who had anticipated an earlier release; some credible rumours had been suggesting that Amazon was eyeing a release window between February and May of next year. However, this became a bit more unlikely as reports massed that Amazon are spending absurd amounts of money on the show and its vfx budget. Such a hefty amount of effects requires a lot of post-production time. With live-action shooting on the show wrapping today, this means that that show will spend over thirteen months in post-production before airing (not to mention the early vfx work done whilst the show was filming), a truly startling amount of time for a TV show.

Amazon did release the first-ever publicity image from the project, showing a figure in white standing in front of typically spectacular New Zealand Middle-earth scenery, with a great city in the background and, on the horizon, what appears to the infamous Trees of Light, the Gold Tree Laurelin and the Silver Tree Telperion. This image is fascinating because it is apparently from before even the First Age of Middle-earth's history, when the godlike Valar raised the Trees of Light in the great western continent of Aman to bring light to the world of Arda before the rise of the Sun and Moon. The city in the foreground might well be Valmar, the great city of the Valar in the land of Valinor (or possibly Tirion, the great Noldor city in the Calacirya, the Pass of Light). However, all previous material for the show indicated it would be set in the Second Age. Whether this was some kind of grand misdirection or just a hint the show will feature extensive flashbacks to earlier epochs is unclear.

One thing Amazon did not confirm was a title for the show. The assumption is that the series will have a subtitle so people can differentiate it from the Peter Jackson movie trilogy, with Lord of the Rings: The Second Age or even Rise of the Lord of the Rings (urgh) mooted, as the show is expected (or at least was, until this image was revealed) to at least partially tell the story of how Sauron forged the One Ring. That title remains unknown for now.

Hopefully Amazon will release some more information over the next thirteen months. Meanwhile, the team are gearing up to start shooting Season 2 of the series, which is expected to begin in January.

RUMOUR: Fansite reveals details about the LORD OF THE RINGS prequel TV series

Middle-earth fansite TheOneRing.net has posted a major reveal about Amazon's upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series (which I've been informally calling The Second Age, but still doesn't have an official title). As with any rumour report, this should be treated with a grain of salt until official information is released but SPOILER ALERT.

According to TheOneRing's sources, the series has officially licensed material from the Tolkien Estate for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion (1977) and Unfinished Tales (1980), posthumous publications which include the bulk of Tolkien's detailed notes and writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth's history. This is the first time the Tolkien Estate has licensed new material to film-makers; previous film versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings descend from a 1969 deal between Tolkien himself and an American producer.

The Tolkien Estate has three lore experts/Tolkien scholars assisting the project and are so far impressed at how things are going.

On the production side of things, scripts are only available digitally and (we know from other reports) are tailored to what scenes actors are in; most actors don't know the full story for the series since they only received scripts for their specific scenes. Presumably the regular actors might have a better idea of the overall story arc, or at least their part of it.

The first two episodes, which were shot months ahead of the rest of the production, have been produced as a stand-alone entry point to the series and franchise. This may (or may not be) fuel rumours that these two episodes will be released separately prior to the rest of the series as a stand-alone, feature-length production to whet the appetite ahead of the rest of the season. However, with only eight episodes in total in Season 1, it's unclear if Amazon would want to split an already short season rather than keeping a lot of discussion going on for longer.

The show has divided production between three units, each dedicated to one of the major races involved in the storyline: humans, elves and dwarves. This makes it sound like each race will have at least one POV in the ongoing storyline. There is also a specific "spoiler unit" which has shot fake scenes to throw off reporters.

Main unit shooting effectively wrapped in April 2021. We know from other sources that a formal wrap on Season 1 is not expected until 30 July, so it sounds like they're doing pickups, reshoots and plates at the moment. There are conflicting reports on when Season 2 will start shooting, some saying January 2022, others earlier.

Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time are being shot on opposite sides of the globe, but they are pooling some crew and experience: we know that Wayne Yip has directed episodes of both shows and that former Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman advised on both series before spooling up his own original project for Amazon.

The show is aiming for a "mid-2022" release date, rather than the early to spring 2022 date previously rumoured.

In terms of the story, it sounds like the show will indeed be delving into early-mid Second Age and will focus on the great elven smith of Celebrimbor as a key character. Celebrimbor (inadvertently) helps Sauron, disguised as a fair prince named Annatar, begin forging the Rings of Power before realising his mistakes. The wording is imprecise, but it sounds like either Sauron/Annatar will not appear in Season 1, or he will but his true identity will not be revealed. That also seemingly confirms that the forging of the One Ring will not take place in Season 1.

Nudity is reportedly present in the show in small amounts, but no sex. One reported scene is a flashback to the First Age showing how elves were captured, imprisoned in terrible conditions and then corrupted into becoming orcs, or their ancestors.

Elves will reportedly have shorter hair than in the chronologically later movies. It's unclear if this applies just to one subset of elves - the Noldor play a big role in the story when they are largely absent from the later time periods - or to all of them. It's also unclear if this applies to the characters who do have longer hair in the chronologically later films, like Elrond and Galadriel, who are expected to play a role in this series.

In probably the biggest spoiler from the report, the show will feature hobbits. In Tolkien's source material, hobbits are not really mentioned prior to the Third Age, with the events of the War of the Ring taking place some 5,000 years after the events of the TV series and the Shire only being founded 1,400 years or so earlier. However, the material also suggests that hobbits were present in Middle-earth earlier, living in other parts of the continent. The show will apparently feature one tribe of proto-hobbits, with Sir Lenny Henry's character being one of this group. However, since they're not getting the specific production unit treatment of the humans, elves and dwarves, it sounds like these hobbits will not play a key role in the narrative.

In a slightly confusing point, apparently the show cannot use the term "cave troll" due to licensing restrictions, and instead will use the term "ice troll." However, Amazon have licensed the existing screen rights for The Lord of the Rings from Warner Brothers/New Line, so it is unclear why they would not be able to use terminology from those films or the novels, especially given all the other terminology you assume they're going to be using/reusing (Nazgul, Sauron, Gondor etc).

Take this all with some caution at the moment, but the reports are broadly in line with previous reports and rumours, and confirm a huge production on a massive scale (albeit one that could probably do with some tighter safety restrictions).

More news when it becomes available.

New animated LORD OF THE RINGS movie, WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM, announced

In unexpected news, New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers Animation have announced they are working on a new, animated Lord of the Rings film called War of the Rohirrim.

Set roughly 250 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the film will tell the story of Helm Hammerhand, a King of Rohan during a terrible war with the Dunlendings and an alliance of Easterlings and corsairs from the south. Helm is mentioned in the Lord of the Rings novels and movie trilogy as the warleader for whom the fortress of Helm's Deep is named.

New Line and Warner Brothers have fast-tracked the project after developing it in the background for some time. It is believed that they wish to take advantage of the impending renewed interest in all things Middle-earth when Amazon launches its Lord of the Rings prequel TV series set during the Second Age. Voice casting is already underway.

The project is not affiliated with Amazon, meaning it is currently intended for cinemas and possibly HBO Max rather than Amazon Prime Television. The project is also not making use of any of the new deals between the Tolkien Estate and Amazon, and will instead rely solely on information from the Lord of the Rings appendices.

Kenji Kamiyama, who created the animation for Netflix's Ultraman project, will direct. Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, who wrote the well-received Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, are writing. Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies, is consulting on the project, which will be very much in the visual style and continuity of the Peter Jackson movies.

This will be no less than the fourth animated Middle-earth movie, following on from The Hobbit (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978) and The Return of the King (1980).

With the film only just greenlit, it is unlikely to air before 2023 at the earliest.

Amazon targeting MGM acquisition, could acquire rights to THE HOBBIT, FARGO and ROCKY

Amazon are making a play to buy the MGM studio for $9 billion. MGM famously holds the rights to various movie and television properties including J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, the Rocky movie franchise (including the recent Creed series of spin-offs), the Stargate multimedia franchise and the Handmaid's Tale television series. MGM also holds distribution rights related to the James Bond franchise.

The entertainment sector in Hollywood has seen massive consolidation in recent years, with Fox being gobbled up by Disney, Universal being bought out by Comcast and ViacomCBS re-acquiring Paramount. Reports are also circulating of a merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia.

MGM have had a long run of problematic finances, with the studio facing bankruptcy several times in the last two decades, despite the success of some its franchises. Despite righting the ship (somewhat), the studio has again been threatened by financial troubles due to the COVID19 pandemic, with the release date of the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, repeatedly slipping as the studio attempted to find a way of getting the film out into the marketplace. The studio has repeatedly rejected offers by streamers such as Netflix to put the film out on-demand.

MGM also owns rights to The Hobbit, although the rights to The Lord of the Rings remain with Warner Brothers and their subsidiary New Line. Warner Brothers have leased certain rights to Amazon (alongside the Tolkien Estate) to work on a new Lord of the Rings prequel TV series about the Second Age, currently shooting in New Zealand with a view to air in 2022. This splitting of rights meant that Warner Brothers had to join forces with MGM to produce the three movies of The Hobbit Trilogy in 2012-14, a fraught and complex process which has been partially blamed for the mixed reception to that trilogy.

MGM's television arm has had great success in recent years with The Handmaid's Tale for Hulu and Fargo for FX.

Amazon acquiring MGM would give Amazon a large-scale television and film production facility and structure that would enhance its own capabilities. It would also give Amazon rights to numerous properties it doesn't own at the moment, potentially allowing future entries in those series to be released exclusively on Amazon's Prime Television platform. It would also unite all of the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium under one banner for TV and film, which would be useful if Amazon were to pursue a plan to remake The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at some future date.

MGM is the long-term distribution partner of Eon Films in making the James Bond franchise, but crucially does not outright own the franchise or character; Eon would be free to join forces with other studios in financing and releasing the films. Eon are unlikely to tolerate the mainline James Bond films being made streaming-only in the near future, suggesting they might seek another release venue for the series. However, the existing films might become exclusive to the Amazon streaming platform once their existing release agreements expire.

Amazon are expanding their own development and production schedule with numerous franchises and shows, as well as looking at tying in their TV and film slate with their video game service Twitch. MGM's library will make an attractive addition to the Amazon stable. It remains to be seen if the deal will go ahead.