As the new Lord of the Rings series gears up for its September launch on Amazon, the company finds itself navigating treacherous, if familiar, waters and has already triggered a fierce debate over race by introducing characters of color into JRR Tolkien’s fantasy world.
The tech giant has spent a dragon’s dungeon of gold on adapting the beloved story famous for its cultish fans, some of whom are deeply enmeshed in the rightwing culture war industry. Yet it is fully aware its final product has to reach a broad and modern audience to justify its eye-popping expenditure.
Co-produced by New Line Cinema, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power isn’t part of Peter Jackson’s phenomenally successful Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, but it is intended to capitalize on their success: a streaming series set in the world of Tolkien’s high-fantasy novels, with characters and battles drawn from the interior history and mythology laid forth in the books’ extensive appendices. Jackson himself is not involved but the sets and costumes would be right at home in his movies.
The new series will feature the Saint Maud star Morfydd Clark as a younger version of Cate Blanchett’s Elvish queen Galadriel, Benjamin Walker as heroic Elven-King Gil-Galad and Maxim Baldry as human king-to-be Isildur among many others. It cost $465m to make the first season, making it the most expensive television show in history. Over its projected five seasons, that budget will almost certainly exceed $1bn.
It is the crown jewel in Amazon’s increasing investment in licensing and producing movies and TV series, which went up from $11bn to $13bn last year according to the company’s annual report. In general, licensing old TV shows and movies will only get more expensive. So it’s in Amazon’s interest to make new shows and movies to attract subscribers and earn itself a little breathing room when it comes time to renegotiate the price of Parks & Recreation reruns.
The Lord of the Rings appendices are more of a “show bible” – the kind of notes you’d give to teleplay writers – than a narrative of their own. So producers have woven their own stories of romance and palace intrigue into the book’s timelines, fairy stories and genealogical footnotes.
That has allowed them to cast people of color as some of the series’ elves and dwarves, pleasing some of the books’ fans and angering others. Recently, Vanity Fair ran a spread of promotional photos for the show, including images of Sophia Nomvete as Dwarven princess Disa and Ismael Cruz Córdova as Elvish warrior Arondir.
