Nomadic hobbits, enslaved elves, a bearded dwarf, and a Balrog: Amazon has finally lifted the lid on the long-awaited series of the Lord of the Ringspresented to fans on Friday at the Comic-Con festival in San Diego.
The ambitious adaptation of the universe created by JRR Tolkien in his novels began when Amazon Prime bought the rights for $250 million about five years ago.
Comic-Con fans, many of whom queued all night to secure a spot in the room, were treated to exclusive clips from the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweras well as interviews with the creators of the series and a score of actors.
“As fans, viewers, and lovers of Middle-earth and Tolkien, we didn’t want to do a parallel or spin-off series,” said series co-creator Patrick McKay.
“We wanted to create something massive and epic from Tolkien. And Amazon was amazing and crazy enough to say ‘yeah, come on,'” he added.
“The way was wide open”
Amazon is said to have budgeted over $1 billion for the five scheduled seasons of power rings, each lasting ten hours. The first season, which will air from September 2, “reintroduces” the world of Middle-earth, emphasizes Patrick McKay.
Very rejuvenated versions of Galadriel and Elrond (Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo) stand out since, although the Elves are supposed to be eternal, the series takes place 4000 years before the trilogy of films shot by Peter Jackson.
more precisely, power rings is set against the backdrop of the “Second Age”, a fictional historical period of the universe invented by Tolkien and about which he has given relatively few details.
The creators of the series, therefore, had more possibilities to give free rein to their imagination. “The way was open,” according to co-creator JD Payne. “Amazon took over the rights to some 10,000 years of Middle-earth history and said, ‘Okay, guys, we’re open to all ideas.’
“We think the Second Age is really cool. It’s an amazing story, untold by Tolkien, so iconic with the creation of the Rings of Power,” says the screenwriter.
“An Entire City”
This series is supposed to be a personal obsession of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. It is above all the most spectacular blow ever given by the group in the “streaming war” that pits it against its main competitors Netflix and Disney +.
A large portion of the show’s budget was spent on unusual set and costume construction, which wowed the fans gathered in San Diego. While the plot remains confidential, the excerpts aired on Friday prominently depicted the island of Númenor, details projected on a giant screen three-quarters of the way to elicit shrieks of admiration from viewers.
“We built everything that humans could,” said executive producer Lindsey Weber.
“We built an entire city with several blocks and a whole pier, it’s crazy and gigantic,” added Patrick McKay.
An excerpt also shows a group of Harfoots (“hairy feet” in the French translation of the novels), nomadic ancestors of the hobbits who live in trailers and not in holes like their “Lord of the Rings” descendants.
Other images reveal a dwarf kingdom and the first appearance of a dwarf -bearded like her peers- in the history of the saga, or even a group of elves chained and reduced to forced labor by horrible orcs.
Competition with House of the Dragon
The series will have to compete, in popularity and audience, with the series derived from game of Thrones, house of the dragonwhich will be presented this Saturday at Comic-Con by HBO.
This is the first time in three years that the festival dedicated to fantasy in all its forms has been held in person, after two virtual editions due to the pandemic.
AMC’s infamous walking dead series The Walking Dead Notably, it confirmed on Friday that its final season will kick off on October 2 and that actor Andrew Lincoln will reprise his role as Rick Grimes for a miniseries next year.
Disney will close the event on Saturday presenting its future productions and many fans hope to discover images of the next Marvel movie dedicated to the superhero Black Panther, “Wakanda Forever”.
Source: BFM TV
