Morfydd Clark as Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Photo / Supplied
It has a cast of unknown actors and a sketchy plot — so what is the story behind this $404 million Lord of the Rings spin-off?
In the winter of 1951 JRR Tolkien wrote a letter to a prospective publisher in which he characterised the so-called Second Age of Middle-earth, which takes in the millennia leading up to his famous Lord of the Rings story. "It is on Earth a dark age," Tolkien wrote. "And not very much of its history is (or need be) told."
Executives at Amazon view the matter rather differently. In 2017 they spent a hefty US$250 million ($404 million) to secure the television rights to tell the story of the Second Age, with the personal backing of Jeff Bezos, the company's founder. They will not be retelling the Lord of the Rings tale, nor that of its beloved sibling The Hobbit. Instead, they spent roughly the entire budget of Peter Jackson's lauded trilogy of films just to buy the rights to make a show drawn primarily from a few pages in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings appendix, depicting an era that even Tolkien only ever bothered to sketch out with a few vague details about the dark lord Sauron crafting the rings of power.
Since then the online giant has splurged an estimated half a billion dollars making season one of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, eight hours of which will land on Amazon on September 2.
Even by the opulent standards of Bezos's behemoth, this is an almighty gamble. The Rings of Power does not have any famous directors or showrunners. There are no A-list actors, unless you count a cameo as a proto-hobbit by Lenny Henry. The most esteemed Tolkien scholar in the world, Tom Shippey, dropped out of the project last year. (One source close to Shippey suggests that he became fed up with Amazon's "overbearing" approach.)
Amazon has bet the farm on the loyalty of Tolkien fans worldwide showing up to devour this return to Middle-earth, 19 years after the last Lord of the Rings film. And on creating a new fellowship of actors and writers who can summon up that precious old Tolkien magic. But with so little actual Tolkien material to work with, this is a Frodo and Sam defeating Sauron-level long shot.
At the heart of this new project are Patrick McKay and JD Payne, the two American showrunners who have overseen the writing and creation of season one. Amazon bought the rights to 50 hours of content in total and is planning five seasons.
McKay and Payne are old high-school friends who have some experience in Hollywood: both wrote on Star Trek Beyond (2016), and it was the recommendation of their old boss, JJ Abrams, that helped to land them the Rings of Power gig. How have they coped with trying to weave Tolkien's addenda into a coherent television show?
"We were dark horses [for this job]," says McKay, who is deep into writing season two. "The mantra was going back to the books. Finding stones that were still unturned. Ideas that were there to be tapped."
McKay and Payne are bona fide dorks and their obvious commitment to Tolkien has assuaged a lot of fan anxiety. They began each morning in the Rings of Power writers' room by analysing a quote from one of the books. "As long as we were in this certain radius of Tolkien, we weren't going astray," Payne says.
Jackson was initially contacted by Amazon to potentially consult on the show, but he says it didn't pursue its interest and McKay and Payne haven't spoken with him. But by filming much of The Rings of Power in New Zealand, using some of the same crew, artists and the same composer, Howard Shore, Amazon is hugging the 17 Oscar-winning juggernaut relatively close. "We are working in the same place with the same material," McKay says. "In the house that [Jackson] built."
But McKay and Payne were also determined to make something new. "In an age of reboots and spinoffs and sequels and prequels, we were not interested in something that felt like a retread or nostalgia," McKay says.
In the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth stories, mostly described in The Silmarillion, the world of Middle-earth is created, and gods and elves and men do battle with an evil spirit named Morgoth and his lieutenant, Sauron. In the Second Age, Sauron re-emerges as the main protagonist and creates strife among elves, men and dwarves by persuading them to forge rings of power, while secretly making his own "one ring to rule them all", culminating in an epic showdown. This leads to the third and most familiar age, when the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins are swept up into the final war with Sauron alongside Gandalf the wizard and characters such as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.
It is the Second Age, when the rings are forged and Numenor — a great Atlantis-like civilisation of men — rises and falls that will be depicted in The Rings of Power. Film fans will recognise dwarf kings, hobbit-like figures, elven queens and even a balrog (a gruesome fire demon), but nonetheless this series will have few familiar characters in it.
Much will hinge on two central figures, Galadriel and Elrond. Played by Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in the movies, these two regal elves appeared as wise but fading elders. Rewind several millennia, though, and they become action heroes at the centre of the Rings of Power story.
In their hunt for a Game of Thrones-sized success, Amazon has deployed a similar strategy to the HBO hit, hoping to find and elevate new stars. If there is a new Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington) among the Rings of Power cast, it will surely be Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo, who play Galadriel and Elrond.
Clark, an exquisite Welshwoman, recalls that she used to straighten her hair while watching the Lord of the Rings movies and is awestruck to be standing on Blanchett's shoulders. "I feel that I'm living an existence where impostor syndrome is the healthiest thing to have," she says. But Clark's Galadriel — climbing up sheer ice walls, slaying giant trolls and generally being a badass elf princess — is undoubtedly the best shot the show has at creating a breakout megastar.
Clark's on-screen chemistry with Aramayo's elf prince Elrond is supposed to be more maternal than sexual (she ends up being his mother-in-law), which is a shame because the pair make a compelling duo. Aramayo, an elegant, angular Yorkshireman, had a brief role as young Ned Stark in Game of Thrones but is similarly being given his big break. "I think he really admires her," he says of his character's relationship to Galadriel. "He feels a love for her that is familial, but she's also quite challenging. It's a complicated relationship."
Responding to what was reportedly a Bezos-level request to make this show, Amazon has spent hundreds of millions on CGI, importing Nasa cooling shirts to allow actors to survive under their armour while fighting, using giant diggers to remould sets and special divers to throw water over characters during aquatic scenes. Although their content business is primarily built to ensure customers hold on to their Amazon Prime shopping subscriptions, the company has nonetheless wagered a huge amount of cash and prestige on this adaptation.
So will it work? Amazon has a relatively poor track record of making top-tier television and this show will have to compete with the new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, out today. Given they have already greenlit season two, which is being made in the UK, Amazon seems fairly hopeful, but it also has the potential to be the most expensive dud in television history. What could justify the price tag? "A giant, global audience needs to show up to it as appointment television," is how Jennifer Salke, the Amazon Studios chief, put it last year.
One audience they will not have to satisfy is the toughest critics of all: JRR Tolkien and his son and literary guardian, Christopher. Both men were famously difficult about adaptations of Middle-earth and Christopher poured scorn on the Jackson films. Because Tolkien sold the film rights to The Lord of the Rings for a mere £10,000 in 1969, the Tolkien estate had no creative control over those films. With this television adaptation, however, they do have creative rights, and McKay and Payne have been working closely with Christopher's son, Simon.
Thankfully for them, Simon is known to be much more amenable than his father, who died in 2020 and resigned as chairman of the Tolkien estate just days before the Amazon show was announced in 2017.
So what would Tolkien have made of it? In that same letter in which he glossed over the events of the Second Age, Tolkien also expressed his hope that others would develop his work after he was gone. He left scope "for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama".
"As a concept, I think he would love it in a lot of ways," says Corey Olsen, a Tolkien scholar. "He wanted this stuff to get out there. In practice, though, Tolkien was such a nitpicker, I'm sure he would have ripped this to shreds." Amazon will have to hope his legions of fans are a little more merciful.
6. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
A generous 169-minute running time, 3D: the director Peter Jackson threw everything at this prequel about a young Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf as they join some dwarves to reclaim treasure guarded by an evil dragon. It doesn't match the epic grandeur of the original set of films, but there's a lot to enjoy — including Martin Freeman as a loveable Baggins.
5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
Things started to gain momentum in the second film in the prequel trilogy. There are giant spiders and a splendid Smaug the dragon, voiced with malice by Benedict Cumberbatch. It's patchy — at times, it is exhilarating, but at its worst, it feels like a filler.
4. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Finally, after 17 hours in Middle-earth, Jackson brought his six-film epic of Lord of the Rings films to a climax. Freeman and Richard Armitage, as the leader of the dwarves, are in fine form. But it's the expansive battle sequences where this film really shines, particularly the breathtaking opening battle between Bard (Luke Evans) and the dragon (Cumberbatch).
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The second film in the original trilogy is darker than the first: Frodo (Elijah Wood) is under the influence of the Ring, and evil Saruman (Christopher Lee) is wreaking havoc and fighting the warrior Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). It suffers from being the middle chapter, but it is still spectacular. Plus there's the complex Gollum, hauntingly voiced by Andy Serkis.
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The opening chapter in the Tolkien franchise is crowded with character and plot detail, but Jackson manages to overcome any challenges with his impressive world-building, thrilling chase scenes and use of the majestic New Zealand landscape. It's an incredible first act that leaves you wanting more.
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The thrilling conclusion to the original trilogy won 11 Oscars, including best picture and best director for Jackson. From the thunderous battle outside the Black Gate to surprisingly intimate moments with Gollum (Serkis) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen), this film is a triumph.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is on Amazon from September 2.
Written by: Josh Glancy
© The Times of London
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