Everything you NEED to KNOW about the LotR TV Series.There are many reasons to be happy every day. This is one.

If you didn’t know, there’s a Lord of the Rings TV Series in the making! Yay 😀

Some news appeared months ago, if I recall correctly, and people went crazy!

In this article, I’ll state some information about what we know up to this date, and why this is related to Dungeons & Dragons, and every other roleplaying game.

LotR News in a nutshell

Today (April 5th), Hollywood Reporter published an article about Amazon’s 5 Season next TV Show. Feel free to check it out here for more information.

Basically, Amazon battled Netflix and HBO for the rights, and won.

Amazon has given a multi season commitment in the deal so it will definitely be more than one. They’ve spent reportedly $200-250m on the rights alone, so you can bet CEO Jeff Bezos is looking to milk this cash cow for every drop, for sure.

Release date?

Amazon must be in production within two years, according to the terms of the pact. When production expenses like casting, producers and visual effects are factored in, the series is expected to cost north of $1 billion.

Take in consideration that HBO took 2 years to produce the first Game of Thrones’ season, so we shouldn’t expect to see anything before late 2019.

Who’s making it?

On November 13th (2017), Amazon Studios beat out Netflix and HBO for a $250 million rights deal with the Tolkien estate, publisher HarperCollins and New Line Cinema that includes a five-season commitment to bring The Lord of the Rings to the small screen.

What about the cast?

Sadly, there is also no news yet on cast, scripts, or filming locations

But Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the original trilogy, has expressed interest in reprising his role. Asked by Graham Norton on his BBC radio show if it was going to be annoying to have another pointy-hatted wizard around, McKellen replied: “What do you mean, another Gandalf?”

He added: “I haven’t said yes because I haven’t been asked. But are you suggesting that someone else is going to play it? Gandalf is over 7000 years old, so I’m not too old.”

Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the movies, has said he doesn’t expect to be cast in the upcoming TV version. He told ScreenCrush: “It sounds incredible, but I don’t see myself being any part of it.”

Do you have a casting suggestion, or a storyline that you’d like to see the new show take on? Please let me know in the comments section! 😉

…And the plot?

We know the series will be a prequel to The Lord Of The Rings films, so that means anything prior to Bilbo handing over the ring to Frodo is fair game.

Amazon Studios could tell the story of a young Aragorn – he’s already 87-years-old by the time The Fellowship Of The Ring begins. Failing that, the plot of recent novels like The Children Of Hurin or Beren & Luthien could be a good starting point, says NME.

Another idea, that has been successful with younger fans, could be to make something similar to Shadow of Mordor.

Why is LotR relevant to D&D?

According to Quora: “There is certainly a Tolkien influence on D&D. Back in the original edition, written in those glorious, long-forgotten days before the RPG industry had ever heard of intellectual property laws, there are explicit references to hobbits, orcs, balrogs, ents and rangers.”

These would all be removed or renamed later on – ‘hobbits’ became ‘halflings’, for instance. However, this was more a case of the writers of D&D taking a grab-bag of ideas from Lord of the Rings and throwing them into the pot along with a thousand other ideas. ”

Conclusion

We haven’t got much information yet, but I’m as hyped as you are right now, that’s for sure!

Let’s hope for the best and wait until more news get released.

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