Help, for this is a mountain of gold.
Remember when everyone was shocked after Netflix spent $13 million per episode of The Crown? Or when everyone’s heads turned when reports confirmed Game of Thrones season 8 cost $15 million per episode – that’s $90 million for the whole season? It’s Lord of The Rings series who is smashing the gold right now.
About The Show
The series, based on the universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien and set a few thousand years before the events of “The Hobbit,” was the biggest-ever debut on the tech giant’s Prime Video service, Amazon.
While previous adaptations have looked mostly at Lord of the Rings’ “Third Age,” Rings of Power goes thousands of years earlier, to the “Second Age.” That period — which itself spans about 3,500 years, includes a huge amount of backstory that leads directly to the main trilogy: the story of Numenor (the ancient kingdom of Men who would eventually come to Middle-earth), the rise and fall of major villain Sauron and, of course, the forging of the 20 rings of power.
Looking back at that history gives ‘Rings of Power’ the opportunity to expand some lesser-known characters who influence the movies audiences are more familiar with. That includes Isildur, the character most famous for refusing to destroy the ring when he had the chance at the beginning of first installment The Fellowship of the Ring.
Another established character brought in from the main trilogy is Elendil, played by Lloyd Owen. That character is father of Isildur, distant ancestor of Aragorn and the first king of Gondor — the large white city made famous by the third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King.
As a work around, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKaye introduce a number of new characters who don’t conflict with the canon of Lord of the Rings, but help to prop up some lacking narrative.
THE GOLD SPENT
The eye-popping Lord of the Rings price tag almost certainly doesn’t reflect season one’s production cost alone. The rights to the Tolkien property cost an estimated $250 million. Plus, there are considerable startup costs when bringing Middle-earth to life — such as sets, costumes and props that will be used throughout the series.
That level of production is hardly surprising; it’s just another massive-budget series among a sea of others, which are slowly but surely changing both the TV and cinema landscape.
And with the first season of a five-season run costing an estimated $465 million, Rings of Power may conservatively cost the studio in excess of $1 billion.
