New adventures with Aragorn, Frodo, Bilbo and Gimli are now possible again: Warner Bros. is planning new “The Lord of the Rings” movies that will delve deeper into the stories of the Third Age of Middle-earth. A “Lord of the Rings” prequel series has just begun on Amazon Prime Video, costing more than a billion dollars and designed for five seasons. Is Amazon now worried that the newly announced “The Rings of Power” mega-fantasy series movies might dig the water (i.e. the fans) away?
So far, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke has been unimpressed with the deal with the Warner competition. “We’ll see,” she initially replied to the magazine’s question how much “The Lord of the Rings” would be TOO much for the market, but then explained much more confidently: “We love our original series. We are extremely proud of her and will be committed to her for a long time to come. We definitely think that there is enough fan love to sustain our love for a long time.”
Peter Jackson could return for movies
So that doesn’t initially sound like cold feet on Amazon’s part, their Prequel series also have a slight disadvantage compared to the planned Warner movies – and it’s not just that Peter Jackson could end up returning for the new Lord of the Rings movies while not involved in the Amazon series. The Warner movies can use the characters already mentioned, such as Aragorn, Frodo and Co.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s prequel series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” has to do without many of the well-known characters, because this is where the Second Age is dealt with – and by then most of the characters from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit were not yet alive, apart from a few Elves like Galadriel.
The Warner films thus have the advantage of being familiar, and of course they also draw on the aura that surrounds Peter Jackson’s beloved “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which they have already produced. “The Rings of Power”, on the other hand, had to create a new story first – and was actually received in a rather mixed way by some fans, but mostly very well by critics.
The direct collision will come
So far, however, Jennifer Salke is confident that the Amazon series will not suffer from the competitive situation – which should really come in time: “The Rings of Power” will get five seasons. If individual seasons are released approximately two years apart, the series accompanies us to eight years. We’re assuming the new “Lord of the Rings” live-action movies will kick off during this time as well.
There’s even a “Lord of the Rings” animated movie coming to theaters next year: Warner’s “The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of Rohirrim” opens April 11, 2024.