It is among the costliest television series ever made and by far the largest live-action Tolkien production for television. It shows the rewards and the traps of streaming's race for the next Game of Thrones.
Overview
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is Amazon's television epic set in J. R. R. Tolkien's Second Age, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. It premiered on Prime Video on 1 September 2022, and a second season followed on 29 August 2024. A third season was filmed in 2025 and is scheduled to begin on 11 November 2026. It started with a reported $250 million rights deal and a first season that cost about $465 million to produce, among the largest sums ever spent on a television series. Critics and fans have argued over it ever since.
Origins
In November 2017 Amazon won a bidding contest with Netflix and signed a deal with the Tolkien Estate and Tolkien Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema. The trade press widely reported that Jeff Bezos had asked his studio for its own Game of Thrones. The deal came with a five-season commitment and a requirement to be in production within two years. It was a new chapter in the long fight over Tolkien's screen rights. Under Christopher Tolkien, the estate had kept a well-known distance from screen versions; the film rights had been sold separately in 1969. The Amazon deal was signed in 2017, the same year Christopher resigned as a director of the estate.
The rights had a large gap. Amazon could use The Lord of the Rings, its appendices and The Hobbit, but not The Silmarillion or the other posthumous histories. Showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who were almost unknown when hired, therefore had to write a Second Age story out of the appendices' timelines and fill the rest with invented material. The first season was shot in New Zealand, in the landscapes Jackson had used. For the second season production moved to the United Kingdom. Howard Shore returned to write the main title theme, and Bear McCreary composed the score.
The story
Season one follows several strands. The elf warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) hunts for the hidden Sauron against the wishes of her own people. The young half-elf Elrond (Robert Aramayo) visits the Dwarf prince Durin in Khazad-dûm, where the miners have found mithril. In the island kingdom of Númenor, Queen Regent Míriel is persuaded to sail to Middle-earth. The Southlands, meanwhile, are overrun by orcs led by Adar, a corrupted elf whom the orcs call "father," and a volcano's eruption turns the region into Mordor. A migrating tribe of Harfoots, ancestors of the hobbits, shelter a mysterious Stranger who has fallen from the sky. The first season ends when Galadriel's human ally Halbrand is revealed to be Sauron. It closes on the forging of the three Elven rings, after the dwarves' deep mining for mithril has already woken a Balrog / Balor in Khazad-dûm.
Season two follows Sauron in a new disguise as "Annatar." He works on the smith Celebrimbor in Eregion and draws him into making the rings for dwarves and men, while war comes to the elven city. The season also introduces Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), a character Jackson's films had left out.
Reception & impact
Amazon said more than 25 million people worldwide watched on the first day, the biggest premiere in Prime Video's history. It later said season two reached 55 million viewers in its first month. Critics praised the production design and effects, and disagreed about the writing and pacing. A widely cited 2023 Hollywood Reporter story, based on sources rather than Amazon's own data, said only about 37 percent of US viewers who began season one finished it. The show also faced a coordinated online backlash over its casting of actors of color as elves, dwarves and Harfoots. Cast members publicly condemned the racist harassment that went with it.
Legacy
The Rings of Power is the clearest example of the streaming era's appetite for fantasy franchises after Game of Thrones. Its scale depended on money that only a tech giant could spend, and its creative limits followed from the complicated state of Tolkien's rights. It sits alongside Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the upcoming Warner Bros. film The Hunt for Gollum, scheduled for December 2027, in an expanding screen Middle-earth. Meanwhile the tabletop game The One Ring Roleplaying Game and the online game The Lord of the Rings Online continue the Third Age for players.
Marginalia
- Amazon beat Netflix for the television rights in November 2017. The reported $250 million deal with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line came with a five-season commitment.
- Amazon did not get the rights to The Silmarillion. The writers had to build the Second Age from The Lord of the Rings, its appendices and The Hobbit.
- Season 1 cost about $465 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive television seasons ever made.
- Amazon said the premiere drew more than 25 million viewers worldwide on its first day, the biggest premiere in Prime Video's history.
- Season 1 was shot in New Zealand like Jackson's films. Production then moved to the United Kingdom for season 2.
- Howard Shore, composer of Jackson's trilogy, wrote the main title theme; Bear McCreary scored the episodes.
Quick answers
- When was The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power first released?
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was first released in 2022– .
- What kind of work is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a television in the Fantasy Television & Animation and High / Epic Fantasy tradition, released for Prime Video.
- Why is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power important?
- It is among the costliest television series ever made and by far the largest live-action Tolkien production for television. It shows the rewards and the traps of streaming's race for the next Game of Thrones.
