I previously posted an FAQ on the
Lord of the Rings TV project about eighteen months ago when it was first announced. Given a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, I thought it might be a good idea to update where we are on this project.
So, what's going on?
In brief, the Tolkien Estate and Trust - the family and company which has handled J.R.R. Tolkien's affairs since his death in 1973 - has joined forces with Warner Brothers and its subsidiary New Line (which produced Peter Jackson's
Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and, with MGM, co-produced the
Hobbit trilogy) and Amazon Television to create a new TV series based on the Middle-earth works by J.R.R. Tolkien. This TV series is in pre-production and is due to start shooting as early as next month (August 2019), with a view to it airing in early-to-mid 2021.
What is this TV show about? Is it a remake of the Lord of the Rings movies?
No. The
Lord of the Rings TV series is a prequel to the movies and will be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth's history. This period of history lasted for 3,441 years, ending 3,018 years before the events of
The Lord of the Rings.
The precise period within the Second Age is unknown, but the smart money is that the TV series will cover the forging of the Rings of Power by the elven-smiths of Eregion, led by Celebrimbor, after he is deceived by Sauron. This is the incident that sets in motion the entire chain of events leading to
The Lord of the Rings, incorporating the War of Sauron and the Elves, the Downfall of Númenor, and the War of the Last Alliance (glimpsed briefly in the opening moments of
The Fellowship of the Ring) along the way.
If it's not Lord of the Rings, why is it using the Lord of the Rings name?
For legal reasons. Warner Brothers/New Line have the television rights to
The Lord of the Rings, so will need to use the
Lord of the Rings name to signify that. Also, as brand-awareness goes, it's the most attention-grabbing name to use. The final name of the series is also likely to be different, with the current smart money going on
The Lord of the Rings: The Second Age.
Wait, don't they also have the rights to The Hobbit?
The Hobbit's rights are a complex mess (see the "brief history" of the rights below). They were originally owned by United Artists and then picked up by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) when they took over UA. Warner Brothers and New Line allied with MGM to make the
Hobbit trilogy, but by all accounts it was a nightmarish legal process lasting the better part of a decade to get there (which is why there was such as huge gap between
The Return of the King and
An Unexpected Journey). For this new TV series, Warner Brothers and New Line appear to have taken the view that it is not worth the trouble of aligning with MGM again, so are proceeding without any material from that book.
What about The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales?
This situation has not been clarified and there has been no formal announcement that the rights to those books have been sold. However, Amazon's use of the map of Númenor, which is a copyrighted part of
Unfinished Tales, suggests that a deal has been done with the Tolkien Estate, allowing them to use the Númenor-relevant chapters from that book and maybe
The Silmarillion.
If the Tolkien Estate hasn't definitively sold the rights to The Silmarillion, why are they involved?
This is a more speculative area, because the Tolkien Estate has not made a direct statement (their only comment so far has been through a Hollywood lawyer). Of the Tolkien Estate's members, Christopher Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien's eldest surviving son and literary executor) was by far the most vocal in his opposition to adaptations based on J.R.R. Tolkien's work.
However, Christopher resigned in August 2017 and it appears that the other board members are far less vociferous in their objections: Priscilla Tolkien (Christopher's younger sister), for example, advised Ralph Bakshi on his animated version of
The Lord of the Rings in 1978 and Simon Tolkien (Christopher's eldest son) supported Peter Jackson's movie trilogy.
In addition, the Tolkien Estate had to go to court several times to defend its rights in different matters relating to both the
Lord of the Rings and
Hobbit trilogies, matters which may not have arisen had the Estate been more closely involved from the start. The rest of the Estate may have also taken the view that if this adaptation is proceeding, they might as well take a role to try to exercise a positive influence on the process.
How long will the series be?
The commitment by Amazon
is apparently for five seasons and a potential spin-off show.
What is the cost of the deal?
Amazon had to pay between $200 million and $250 million for the rights up-front, along with certain guarantees for how much money they would put into the series budget. Apparently the per-season budget is guaranteed at between $100 million and $150 million, although the number of episodes per season has not yet been decided. Assuming the $250 million and $150 million figures are accurate, this deal will cost Amazon approximately $1 billion, or almost twice the total cost of all seventy-three episodes of
Game of Thrones on HBO. This would make the series comfortably the most expensive ongoing TV show (not a mini-series) ever made.
Is anyone from the Jackson movie series involved?
Peter Jackson has apparently held discussions with the team at Amazon and may take a consulting role, but will not be involved on a day-to-day basis.
However, the series will be shooting in New Zealand and, given the relatively small size of the New Zealand film industry, it is likely there will be some creative crossover between the movies and the TV show.
Will the series use the movie art design, sets, effects, actors or other elements?
Given Warner Brothers/New Line's involvement, this would certainly be legally possible, but so far unconfirmed. In the case of actors, there are only a few actors from the
Lord of the Rings movies who'd would appear in
The Second Age, most notably Elrond, Galadriel, Elendil and Isildur, and it is unclear if those actors would be interested in appearing in a project where Peter Jackson is not involved.
It's more likely that the series will focus on new castmembers playing younger versions of the film characters, re-casting roles where necessary.
Will the new series be filmed in New Zealand or elsewhere?
The series will be primarily shot in and around Auckland, New Zealand, which won the right to shoot the series following a tense competition with Scotland.
When will the new TV series air?
The series starts shooting in August 2019, with production expected to run through mid-2020. On that basis, with a significant amount of post-production to follow, the show is likely to air in early 2021.
Who are the creative talent involved?
Patrick McKay and John D. Payne are the showrunners and principle writers. Bryan Cogman (
Game of Thrones) joined the project late in pre-production to serve as a creative consultant and producer, with the possibility of an expanded role in Season 2. Gennifer Hutchison (
Breaking Bad) is also a writer on the project.
J.A. Bayona (
The Orphange,
The Impossible,
A Monster Calls) is directing at least the first two episodes and serving as a producer.
With production due to begin fairly imminently, casting announcements are expected any day.
Why Amazon?
This TV project was proposed to HBO, Netflix and Amazon, since it was (correctly) assumed that they would be the only three companies with deep enough pockets to entertain the deal. HBO turned the project down for cost and because of their commitment to their ongoing
Game of Thrones franchise, specifically the upcoming spin-off prequel series. Netflix also appears to have balked at the cost, offering $100 million instead for the rights and being outbid by Amazon. Netflix also have their own epic fantasy TV shows in development, including one based on the
Witcher novels and short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski, a fresh
Chronicles of Narnia adaptation and a live-action version of
Avatar: The Last Airbender.
A Brief(ish) History of the Middle-earth Movie and TV Rights
J.R.R. Tolkien (b. 1892) created Middle-earth c. 1916, when he began writing a book eventually entitled
The Silmarillion, a collection of fictional legends and stories set in a fantasy land called Middle-earth. Tolkien spent the rest of his life developing
The Silmarillion and died in 1973 with the book still incomplete. However, he used the incomplete "Legendarium" as a source work for two novels published in his lifetime:
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien wrote
The Hobbit between around 1930 and 1936, and it was published in 1937. He then wrote the much longer
Lord of the Rings between 1937 and 1947, spent two years editing it and a further five years trying to get it published; it finally appeared in three volumes in 1954 and 1955 and was a modest initial success. However, a very public and famous copyright battle erupted in 1965 when an American publisher, Ace, released an unauthorised paperback edition of the book. Tolkien and his publishers won the battle and many curious readers, particularly in the United States, picked up the novel. Thanks to strong word-of-mouth and an adoption by the 1960s counter-culture, the novel's sales exploded worldwide between 1965 and 1969.
In 1969 Tolkien, keen to ensure the financial security of his grandchildren, sold the screen rights to
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings to United Artists for a significant sum and these rights were then further acquired by producer Saul Zaentz in 1976. However, United Artists believed that anyone wanting to adapt the books would need to start with
The Hobbit and saw it as the more valuable asset. Accordingly, United Artists sold only the full screen and production rights to
The Lord of the Rings to Zaentz and held onto distribution rights to
The Hobbit. These rights were acquired by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1981 when they bought United Artists (who were in danger of going bust after the massive failure of the movie
Heaven's Gate).
Zaentz and UA collaborated to allow the production of a cartoon version of
The Hobbit with animation studio Rankin/Bass in 1977 and an animated version of
The Lord of the Rings in 1978 with Ralph Bakshi. When the producers could not agree on terms to make a second part of
The Lord of the Rings, they parted ways and Zaentz, UA and Rankin/Bass reconvened to make an animated sequel called
The Return of the King in 1980. However, by the mid-1980s the rights to
The Lord of the Rings had reverted to Zaentz whilst UA/MGM retained some rights to
The Hobbit.
In 1995 New Zealand film-maker Peter Jackson began considering plans for a Tolkien trilogy. He proposed a one-film adaptation of
The Hobbit and a two-movie version of
The Lord of the Rings. Several studios expressed an interest, but most notably Miramax, the studio owned by the Weinstein Brothers. Miramax spoke to Zaentz and found him willing to sell the rights, but quickly became aware of the MGM stake in
The Hobbit rights. Miramax was unable to meet MGM's price for
The Hobbit rights and suggested that Jackson proceed with
The Lord of the Rings alone. Later Miramax, suffering financial problems, reduced the scope of the proposed film from two movies to one. Jackson was unable to comply, but found a new partner in the shape of New Line Cinema, who not only embraced the project but gave Jackson
three movies to adapt
The Lord of the Rings. The three movies were released between 2001 and 2003 and grossed just under $3 billion at the box office, becoming a cultural phenomenon. New Line licensed the film rights to
The Lord of the Rings and also production rights to
The Hobbit from Zaentz for an unclear period of time, but it seems to have extended into the early-to-mid 2010s.
In 2008 Warner Brothers bought out New Line and inherited their licensed rights. With considerably deeper pockets, they moved to ally with MGM and secured the rights to make
The Hobbit. Originally Jackson and director Guillermo Del Toro planned a two-film version of
The Hobbit and a third "bridging movie" linking
The Hobbit to
Lord of the Rings, drawing on the appendices in the latter. However, Warner Brothers got cold feet on this idea, eventually insisting on three movies based on the very short
Hobbit (which is only one-fifth the length of
The Lord of the Rings). Del Toro quit the project and Peter Jackson was persuaded to take over at short notice, resulting in the
Hobbit trilogy of movies released between 2012 and 2014. The trilogy took slightly more money than the
Lord of the Rings trilogy, but on a much higher budget and the critical reception was lukewarm in comparison.
Meanwhile, when J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973 his literary rights were inherited by his third son and literary executor, Christopher. Christopher, working alongside several assistants (most notably Guy Gavriel Kay, a future, highly accomplished fantasy author in his own right), assembled his father's incomplete manuscripts to publish
The Silmarillion in 1977. A further collection of short stories, essays, maps and background information on Middle-earth was published as
Unfinished Tales in 1980. Along with
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings, these two books would be considered part of the Tolkien "canon" (although debate would continue to surround the later two books due to Christopher's editorial choices, some of which he himself would later regret). Christopher Tolkien also published the twelve-volume
History of Middle-earth series, which collects every early draft, abandoned fragment and partial manuscript ever written by Tolkien on the subject of Middle-earth. Later on, drawing from the same material, Christopher Tolkien would produce
The Children of Hurin (2007),
Beren and Luthien (2017) and
The Fall of Gondolin (2018), fleshing out episodes from
The Silmarillion into longer stories.
Christopher, as J.R.R. Tolkien's literary executor, was 100% adamant that he would never sell the film or TV rights to
The Silmarillion or the other posthumous material and this remained constant, right up to Christopher resigning as head of the Tolkien Estate in August 2017. Following Christopher Tolkien's departure, a deal was done between the Estate and Amazon. It is unclear what this deal involves, except that Amazon's project apparently has access to very specific material from
Unfinished Tales and possibly
The Silmarillion.
One thing that is clear is that Christopher's departure and Amazon's entry to the TV market are both gamechangers for the fields of fantasy and television.
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