Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings show gets an official title
The long-awaited show will debut worldwide on September 2
Aux News Amazon
Amazon has revealed the title of its long-anticipated, extremely expensive, Lord Of The Rings series. The show, set to debut this September on Prime Video, will be called Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power.
In case your knowledge of LOTR-lore is a little rusty, the title refers to the other rings, the ones that Frodo did not throw into Mordor. Amazon released a very fancy title announcements video that also helps piece it together.
The video features a real blacksmith “physically forging” the title in a blacksmith’s foundry. Line from Tolkein’s “Ring Verse” are read in voiceover:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
“This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics. The Rings Of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men,” showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay explained in a statement. “Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring — but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”
The show is set a thousand years before Tolkein’s original series, which served as the source material for Peter Jackson’s iconic trilogy of films. Jackson’s second attempt at a LOTR series—the three Hobbit movies—was much less successful.
Season one of The Rings Of Power reportedly cost $465 million, with Amazon planning to ultimately release five seasons. The announced cast is enormous, but largely made up of unknown actors.
The show will debut worldwide on Sept. 2, with new episodes released weekly. That’s enough time for you to finally read The Silmarillion.
118 Comments
Oh man, I had my money on How I Met Your Morgoth.
[1. General – Barrens] [Fever-Dog] How I Met Your Murloc.
Young Sauron.
That’s My Boromir!
Elrond’s In Charge
“Hal Roach presents an Our Fellowship comedy!”“Galadriel Explains It All!”“Orcs And Geeks!”“Strangers With Rings!”“The Two Fawlty Towers!”“The New Saruman” (I could totally see him as a corrupt Tory politician in Thatcher’s Britian).
WKRP In Gondor
How to Train Your Ancalagon has to be an episode title, at least.
Melkor in the Middle
[1. General – Barrens] [Fever-Dog] Murloc in the Middle
I’d definitely watch a workplace comedy called 20 Ring. Or maybe The Forge.
An adolescent sex comedy: Fast Times At Rivendell High
Dark Lord Knows Best
Down & Out In Beleriand
8 Simple Rules for dating my teenage Galadriel
[1. General – Barrens] [Fever-Dog] 8 Simple Rules for dating my teenage murloc.
I was hoping for a sexy, teen-drama reimagining of the Elves: Rivendale.
Strider: Tirith Ranger
The Great Lothlorien Lembas Bake-Off
“…and when I look back on that First Age, they truly were The Wonder Years of The Trees…”
Treebeard and the Bear
Elv-ish.
lool
Melloni
What We Do In the Dark Land
I understand that Wheel of Time was not beloved. But I’ve enjoyed Upload, Them, The Underground Railroad, Invincible, and The Boys on Amazon…
As a huge LotR fan, here’s hoping this show succeeds in its delivery and vision. Though I hear Cate Blanchett is not playing Galadriel: Strike one!
I don’t get why they can’t shave off $100M and make more seasons of The Expanse, which is less likely to be a giant boondoggle.the thing is…the $$$ spent on name actors is worth it. Rosamund Pike and Sophie Okonedo was a show I would have watched, the five main kids were boring and often terrible. Another season of Wheel, Rings, plus new boobs and dragons (GoT) and we are about to hit fantasy surfeit.
It’s very hard to look at that price tag and not be upset about The Expanse.
no lie…they did leave it open to go further (going so far as to set up the whole next thing with the “dogs” and having that scientist talk about killing gods, checking in with the botanist guy) so I hope it’s a BSG situation (“The Plan” after the show ended) where they’re only willing to do a condensed contained movie of the next book. With this cast still available it’s just madness not to continue. Hope springs eternal.
Yes. I still have hop too. I’m glad they left it open for finishing the series rather than rushing to end everything in 6 eps (Amazon couldn’t even spring for a full season!).
“Another season of Wheel, Rings, plus new boobs and dragons (GoT) and we are about to hit fantasy surfeit”No such thing!
this one’s a dwarf, this one’s an oarf, this one’s a wharf, this one’s Lt. Whorf, this one’s a morf, have you got that straight? Oigreogreahoy! It’s the SHINNING lad, do ya want ta get sued!?
If they don’t have this guy, what’s the point of even watching?
The reason, I think, is the difference between network TV and streaming. People who like The Expanse would be happy with more seasons, and that can work fine when you’re mainly just trying to get a sufficient number of people to watch ads. But The Expanse isn’t going to drive subscribers to join Prime Video, and subscriptions is what really matters. A Lord of the Rings show has much the same appeal as The Mandolorian: for some significant number of people, it is a must watch, and those people will pay to subscribe when they might not otherwise.It puts Amazon in a position to compete with the big dog streaming services, and that’s critically important for it, because not all those services are going to survive.
I just remembered I watched Upload at the start of the pandemic. Enjoyed it, wouldn’t have minded seeing more.
Will you not be watching season 2?
Oh! i just assumed since it’s been like two years that this wasn’t coming back. Good news!
I liked Upload, too. More than I expected I would. S1 definitely ended making me want more.They’re working on season 2. I think it’s dropping this spring.
There’s still supposedly a season 2 of Upload coming.
On screen, Wheel of Time relied heavily on “Look at these magical hand waving, Oh the uplifting music…. Aren’t you inspired “ trope a lot. World building was all tell no show. There was hardly any emotional connection to the characters or set pieces unless you spent teenage years reading the world. Still, Wheel of Time manages manages to scrape by without much damage due to the nature of its fandom and generous ratings from the critics.
Existing LOTR fandom, spawned by the movies, are mostly male, aged and toxic. I can foresee a lot of things going wrong if the storytelling is complacent.
Most of the the LotR fandom I’m aware of is overwhelmingly female. And those that aren’t are pretty easygoing. One of the chillest fandoms I’ve seen. I guess there are a few super religious fans?
I really think that Amazon f***ed up by trying to do TWO massive, high-concept, big-budget fantasy series at the same time.
After everything that WoT did in the name of staying on-budget, I’m kinda skeptical of this.
I liked the Wheel of Time show. It wasn’t great or anything, but it was mildly entertaining, albeit generic fantasy fare.
Can’t wait to hear Ralph Bakshi bitch about this.
If you want to hear Ralph Bakshi complain, there are two steps: 1. Find Ralph Bakshi.Actually, there’s just one step. It probably helps if you initiate a conversation or offer a prompt, but it’s not essential.
At least the porn adaptation can use the same nameParsing through the cast list, I recognize very few of them other than Benjamin Walker (broadway guy and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter). The most notable name I see is Peter Mullan. Scottish actor, was a time when he may have been the greatest (english language) actor on the planet, now I’d say Brendan Gleeson. The first season of Top of the Lake, Session 9, and the incredibly underrated and forgotten Michael Winterbottom/Thomas Hardy masterpiece The Claim are a good place to start.
Lord of the Cock Rings?
Lord of the Muscle Rings?
Ring of Power Bottoms
Ring of Plow ‘Er
I barely know ‘er!
You bastard, you beat me to it!
Artie Lange was Lord Of The Anal Rings for like a couple years.
Rings of Pound Her.(dirtside posted my better version first.)
Rings of Plow Her? Or was that what he posted
Yeah, “Plow Her” was what I had in mind, but he got there first, and now my life is nothing but a hollow farce.
hollow like a…hmmm
Like a thoroughly plowed vagina, exactly.
at least it’s not hollow like winning the NFC East or something obscene like that
$465 million is completely insane for a single season of television, even with the kind of money that Amazon can throw around.
Filming on location in Numenor is really expensive.
They should have gone for the tax breaks and filmed in Vancoúvenor.
Or Torontonor, but then you have keep airbrushing out the Tower of See-En in the background.
I’d take an figures they quote with a pinch of salt. At one point they were claiming a billion. It’s clearly part of the marketing plan to claim its the most expensive show in history. Since it’s pretty much guaranteed to last multiple seasons I’d imagine there’s a lot of stuff that they’re counting in advance from the next few seasons and a bunch of stuff they’re building that will reduce the cost of the next few years.
Isn’t Hollywood accounting notoriously shifty? Like the guy who played Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi has never received any residuals because the movie never made a “profit,” according to LucasFilms, at least.
Without backing documentation, the $465M number for the first season is pretty suspect. The actual production budget (in other words, what they actually spent on the production itself, not counting licensing fees, or anything external to it) is likely to be substantially less than that.
It’s not about profiting on this specific series. It’s about winning the streaming wars, and $465 million is not an insane amount for a shot at competing with more successful streaming services for a hugely lucrative market. If you don’t take big shots like this, the reality is you’re waiting around until the other services take all your subscribers or acquire your catalogue to get more content for themselves.
Just wait until Richard Branson hits back with his $792 million ‘Wind in the Willows’ miniseries.
They’re striving to make it as real as possible by mining all the mithril veins in Moria to then install those mithril veins in the Moria set.
Stellar. Cannot wait. This looks amazing and I hope that we are not, all of us, betrayed by it.
What about it looks amazing? We haven’t actually been shown anything beyond a smithing sequence specifically made for this teaser trailer. 😛
I mean, look, I was really just trying to find a way to reference “they were, all of them, betrayed” from Fellowship of the Ring.
Good sequence!
I’ve been quite affected by all these updates about the series. They’ve become very precious to me.
I think this series could be pretty good, especially as the producers have a story that the author finished.
All you really need to read is the Akallabeth and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age ( the last 2 chapters in the Silmarillion). Don’t go crazy with that book.
Was going to say the same thing. If the Elvish poetry and references to obscure historical figures weren’t your thing in LOTR, then I’d generally suggest skipping The Silmarillion.
They got vampires, werewolves and incest! It’s practically GoT!
Why does everyone always gloss over the fact that the dwarves are also mortal? Smh
Well, they get to go to the Halls of Mandos and help out their god/angel who made them when they die, so that’s kind of different than what happens to either Elves or Men. What never seemed to be answered is what happens to hobbits.
Sent directly to Hell for living lives of indolence and debauchery.
Thousand(S) of years before LoTR; not a thousand. Takes a hit off inhaler.
THOUSANDS of years ago…!…
I was hoping for a series set in Middle Earth’s First Age (Morgoth, Beren and Luthien, The Fall of Gondolin, The Dispossessed, The War of Wrath, etc.). But I get that they want to stick with the familiar, and this series seems to cover a lot of stuff LOTR fans are already familiar with, like Sauron, the Nazgul, Numenor and the House of Elendil.
I’ve been so-so on this whole project, but if they dedicate part of a season to the war with Angmar, I’ll at least watch an episode. That said, I’d find it delightful if they relegated the Nazgul to a quick montage (or a cutaway where the Nine Kings unbox their rings and then promptly agree they’re going to serve Sauron) and then spent multiple episodes with Cirdan the Shipwright.
I think there are two groups of LOTR fans. You’re thinking of hardcore fans, who know the lore and background from the books. But those weren’t the people driving the box office for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That success was because of a much larger group of more casual fans, who love the movies and might be excited by the show, but who couldn’t tell you what Numenor was with a gun to their heads.
My doctor prescribed me Numenor for migraines.
Are fans familiar with Numenor? I feel like they’re pretty vague on how it all went down.
Unlike the first age stuff they’ve probably heard of it. It was mentioned in the movies and they went further into the history in the Special Features.
In the very vaguest sense, yes. But I doubt they know much of the details. Honestly, this time period makes tons of sense. Plenty of violence, easily understood but interesting politics, and elves and humans interacting.One element that’s interesting is, given that there are multiple versions of the story, they have some freedom to surprise even fans who’ve read the Silmarillion.
People read The Silmarillion?
Probably? People read the 10 300-page volumes of Tolkien’s notes. The Silmarillion is an easy lift compared to that. Personally, there are bits of it I’ve still been unable to get through, but it’s not really a book you read cover-to-cover so…
Yeah, the ending of Numenor was all wet!
Ok.
One ring for Robert in his comfortable cocoon on indifference…
In case your knowledge of LOTR is a little rusty“Lore of the Rings” was RIGHT THERE!
They should do a Dune/LOTR crossover: Ringworm.
Not sure how Galadriel is going to be a lead when all she does in the 2nd Age is tell Celebrimbor not to trust Sauron in disguise but then take one of the three elven rings anyway
She specifically took the ring for safekeeping after Sauron’s treachery was fully revealed. She never used it until the War of the Last Alliance was over.
I mean, you’re assuming they care about faithfully recreating books only a tiny amount of the audience has read or even heard of.
She didn’t take the ring from Sauron. The Three were made by Celebrimbor and not touched by the Dark Lord.
An actual serious comment! I didn’t know you made those.
FROYNLAVEN!!!
You remind me of rings! What rings? The rings of power! The power of voodoo, you do! Remind me of the rings. What kind of magic spells to use…
I’d rather see a Breaking Bad spin-off show called Frings of Power.
“This is Vilya, the ring of air. Do not try to smoke the blue gemstone!”
“I am the one who shall not pass!”
“They’ve taken the hobbits to Heisenberg!”
The voice used for the announcement is grating. Please don’t be a character on the show whoever you are.
One does not simply “throw rings into Mordor.” I hope someone got fired for this blunder.Oh wait, that was because they wouldn’t needlessly move halfway across the country without any pay incentive to the most expensive city to live in in the U.S. Silly me!
“Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring
— but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share
the epic story of them all.”
*pushes glasses up* The Three and Nine Rings were either shown on-screen or definitely part of the story of the One Ring, so they’re basically spending hundreds of millions of dollars just to give us seven more and some Second Age fan-fic.
… Of course I’m still going to watch it.
Holy smokes (literally) this was done practically with minimal vfx.
Um, actually *pushes glasses up*,The One Ring is also a ring of power, and he didn’t just ‘throw it into Mordor’. That’s like saying he threw it into France.Phew, I feel a lot better, about myself and the article. I’m sure the rest of the internet will just high-five my choice to make these petty corrections.Petty…hmm, I wonder if we’ll see Mim the Petty Dwarf.
I mean, Frodo didn’t throw shit. He held onto the Ring until Gollum snatched it and fell into the fires of Mount Doom.
“How did he die?”
“Fell into a volcano while brandishing a trinket and doing a stupid dance.”
Lord of the Rings: Rings of the LordOh and fuck G/O Media and Spanfeller.
Let us pray…Oh Lord God…oh God, Lord!
Hey guys, there’s even some leaked footage that shows one of these Rings of Power, or “Power Rings”:
Tom Bombadil narrates the whole thing or GTFO.
Wait, molten metal poured onto wood that doesn’t burn?Is this some special wood? We’re not THAT stupid. Even if we’re not nerds. This is like HBO convincing me that Steve Buscemi should be in nude scenes.