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Amazon gets NEW Middle-Earth stories for TV series

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haymarket

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Recently there was speculation that there was going to be a reboot of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies which were out in the theaters from late 2001 through 2004 and which won 17 Oscars. Now the smoke has cleared and what we will be getting is not a reboot but new stories that precede the events of LOTR.

Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels, The Lord of the Rings, for Television with a Multi Season Production Commitment | Business Wire


SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced it has acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings,based on the celebrated fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, with a multi-season commitment. The upcoming Amazon Prime Original will be produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment.
“The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen,” said Sharon Tal Yguado, Head of Scripted Series, Amazon Studios. “We are honored to be working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line on this exciting collaboration for television and are thrilled to be taking The Lord of the Rings fans on a new epic journey in Middle Earth.”
“We are delighted that Amazon, with its longstanding commitment to literature, is the home of the first-ever multi-season television series for The Lord of the Rings,” said Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins. “Sharon and the team at Amazon Studios have exceptional ideas to bring to the screen previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings.”
Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.
A world-renowned literary work, and winner of the International Fantasy Award and Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, The Lord of the Rings novels was named Amazon customers’ favorite book of the millennium in 1999 and Britain’s best-loved novel of all time in BBC’s The Big Read in 2003. Its theatrical adaptations, from New Line Cinema and Director Peter Jackson, earned a combined gross of nearly $6 billion worldwide. With an all-star cast that included Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin and Orlando Bloom, The Lord of the Rings trilogy garnered a combined 17 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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As a life long Tolkien fanatic, I love this and hope the rights include parts of the SILMARILLION and other Tolkien works from the First and Second Ages of Middle-earth.

With Amazon behind it, and with the cooperation of the Tolkien Estate and Warner Brothers, this has potential to be some of the best material ever produced for TV in the fantasy field.

I know many people did NOT want to see a mere reboot of the existing films - and our worst fears were put aside with this announcement.
 
The Hobbit?
 
ecofarm said:
The Hobbit?
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Obviously the events of THE HOBBIT are indeed before LOTR. So maybe they could be included .... however I get the impression from both the press release and the coverage of this in different places that they will not be rebooting that series of films either.
 
haymarket said:
Obviously the events of THE HOBBIT are indeed before LOTR. So maybe they could be included .... however I get the impression from both the press release and the coverage of this in different places that they will not be rebooting that series of films either.
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No reason to reboot the trilogy, but I'd like to see a high quality modern production of The Hobbit. Silm would be cool too, but I'm not familiar with it.
 
ecofarm said:
No reason to reboot the trilogy, but I'd like to see a high quality modern production of The Hobbit. Silm would be cool too, but I'm not familiar with it.
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Think of it this way.... JRRTolkien gave the word thousands and thousands of years of Middle-earth history filled with lots of characters and countries and events that we only saw a small slice of in both LOTR and HOBBIT. I have read THE SILMARILLION many times over the last forty years along with the bits and pieces of Middle-earth in other books like UNFINISHED TALES and you could easily get forty one hour episodes out of that material and in many ways it would be far more epic that anything we have see so far.

The one caution here is the Christopher - the son of JRRT and head of the Estate - has always maintained he would never sell those rights. But he is in his 90's and maybe sees the writing on the wall and wants to have a hand in their adaption. We will see over the coming weeks and months as this is fleshed out.

The other question is the involvement of Peter Jackson and WETA. Will it keep to the look we already know - or will they go in a completely different direction and leave PJ and WETA out of it?

Its going to be a fun next year as this develops and they put some meat and skin on the bones.
 
haymarket said:
Recently there was speculation that there was going to be a reboot of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies which were out in the theaters from late 2001 through 2004 and which won 17 Oscars. Now the smoke has cleared and what we will be getting is not a reboot but new stories that precede the events of LOTR.

Amazon to Adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s Globally Renowned Fantasy Novels, The Lord of the Rings, for Television with a Multi Season Production Commitment | Business Wire



As a life long Tolkien fanatic, I love this and hope the rights include parts of the SILMARILLION and other Tolkien works from the First and Second Ages of Middle-earth.

With Amazon behind it, and with the cooperation of the Tolkien Estate and Warner Brothers, this has potential to be some of the best material ever produced for TV in the fantasy field.

I know many people did NOT want to see a mere reboot of the existing films - and our worst fears were put aside with this announcement.
Click to expand...




Well that is exciting news, I just hope they do it justice and don't butcher it.

Helluvalotta material in the Silmarillion could be fleshed out into stories, with the right writers on the job.

Very interesting, thanks for bringing this up.
 
haymarket said:
Think of it this way.... JRRTolkien gave the word thousands and thousands of years of Middle-earth history filled with lots of characters and countries and events that we only saw a small slice of in both LOTR and HOBBIT. I have read THE SILMARILLION many times over the last forty years along with the bits and pieces of Middle-earth in other books like UNFINISHED TALES and you could easily get forty one hour episodes out of that material and in many ways it would be far more epic that anything we have see so far.

The one caution here is the Christopher - the son of JRRT and head of the Estate - has always maintained he would never sell those rights. But he is in his 90's and maybe sees the writing on the wall and wants to have a hand in their adaption. We will see over the coming weeks and months as this is fleshed out.

The other question is the involvement of Peter Jackson and WETA. Will it keep to the look we already know - or will they go in a completely different direction and leave PJ and WETA out of it?

Its going to be a fun next year as this develops and they put some meat and skin on the bones.
Click to expand...

I look forward to being introduced to the stories you mention. I casually read (some of?, don't remember) Silm decades ago, so it'll pretty much all be new to me.
 
haymarket said:
Obviously the events of THE HOBBIT are indeed before LOTR. So maybe they could be included .... however I get the impression from both the press release and the coverage of this in different places that they will not be rebooting that series of films either.
Click to expand...

I liked the Hobbit trilogy well-enough, even though it took a lot of liberties with the actual book and kind of jumped the shark a bit with the Battle of the Five Armies. Sure, Legolas is a bad-ass elven archer, but that collapsing tower scene... ugh, it was like a video game or superhero schlock.

Still, if they're not rebooting my guess is Sil or Unfinished Tales...
 
Goshin said:
Well that is exciting news, I just hope they do it justice and don't butcher it.

Helluvalotta material in the Silmarillion could be fleshed out into stories, with the right writers on the job.

Very interesting, thanks for bringing this up.
Click to expand...

When I posted this I thought of your own love for Middle-earth. Hopefully they will please all of us.
 
ecofarm said:
I look forward to being introduced to the stories you mention. I casually read (some of?, don't remember) Silm decades ago, so it'll pretty much all be new to me.
Click to expand...

If you decide to read it, go easy on the first few chapters which is Tolkiens creation story. Lots of gods and goddesses and some people never get beyond it. But if you do, there is tremendous stuff waiting for you. All the stuff with the Elves and Morgoth puts LOTR to shame by comparison in terms of its epicness - if that is a word.
 
haymarket said:
If you decide to read it, go easy on the first few chapters which is Tolkiens creation story. Lots of gods and goddesses and some people never get beyond it. But if you do, there is tremendous stuff waiting for you. All the stuff with the Elves and Morgoth puts LOTR to shame by comparison in terms of its epicness - if that is a word.
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That's probably what happened. Maybe I'll give it a read in anticipation of new cinema.
 
ecofarm said:
That's probably what happened. Maybe I'll give it a read in anticipation of new cinema.
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If you decide to reread it, let me know. I will be glad to stand by and answer any questions you may have. Things really pick up with chapter 3 - The Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor. From that point on its great stuff.
 
haymarket said:
As a life long Tolkien fanatic, I love this and hope the rights include parts of the SILMARILLION and other Tolkien works from the First and Second Ages of Middle-earth.

With Amazon behind it, and with the cooperation of the Tolkien Estate and Warner Brothers, this has potential to be some of the best material ever produced for TV in the fantasy field.

I know many people did NOT want to see a mere reboot of the existing films - and our worst fears were put aside with this announcement.
Click to expand...

Hopefully this news will prove positive and rewarding to all those who appreciate Tolkien. Few know that Tolkien wouldn't have written his oeuvre had he not made a wager. He and T.H. White, good friends, were young lecturers at Oxford, often debating their mutual critiques of other authors, at times in print, at others in front of live audiences at Oxford, composed of students, other scholars, teachers and professors. Those printed and live debates were extremely popular. Tho they were very good friends, over the years as both progressed at Oxford from lecturers to professors, the ferocity of those debates, as well as the mutual humor of their verbal pokes at each other, became a competition in and of itself, leading to a wager and challenge as to who could write the best epic novel. Obviously Tolkien responded with his tales of Middle Earth, White with his prequel "The Sword in the Stone" and his 5 volume "Once and Future King," today published as a single book. For all Tolkien readers, an exploration of White's works may not be obligatory, but it certainly can be equally as rewarding.

There has only been one animated version of The Once and Future King, rarely seen, but worth hunting up. This is another author who's work is over ripe for serious consideration by the moving image industry.

I hope all enjoy.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Hopefully this news will prove positive and rewarding to all those who appreciate Tolkien. Few know that Tolkien wouldn't have written his oeuvre had he not made a wager. He and T.H. White, good friends, were young lecturers at Oxford, often debating their mutual critiques of other authors, at times in print, at others in front of live audiences at Oxford, composed of students, other scholars, teachers and professors. Those printed and live debates were extremely popular. Tho they were very good friends, over the years as both progressed at Oxford from lecturers to professors, the ferocity of those debates, as well as the mutual humor of their verbal pokes at each other, became a competition in and of itself, leading to a wager and challenge as to who could write the best epic novel. Obviously Tolkien responded with his tales of Middle Earth, White with his prequel "The Sword in the Stone" and his 5 volume "Once and Future King," today published as a single book. For all Tolkien readers, an exploration of White's works may not be obligatory, but it certainly can be equally as rewarding.

There has only been one animated version of The Once and Future King, rarely seen, but worth hunting up. This is another author who's work is over ripe for serious consideration by the moving image industry.

I hope all enjoy.
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Thank you for mentioning Whites ONCE AND FUTURE KING. I love the part where the story of creation is explained ... The Badgers Dissertation ... with all the little embryos. Its my favorite part of the book.

I agree it would make for a great series.
 
haymarket said:
If you decide to read it, go easy on the first few chapters which is Tolkiens creation story. Lots of gods and goddesses and some people never get beyond it. But if you do, there is tremendous stuff waiting for you. All the stuff with the Elves and Morgoth puts LOTR to shame by comparison in terms of its epicness - if that is a word.
Click to expand...

I've never been able to get through the first few chapters. I tried to read the bible once... ran into the same problem. :lol: Might have to give it a go again.
 
Winchester said:
I've never been able to get through the first few chapters. I tried to read the bible once... ran into the same problem. :lol: Might have to give it a go again.
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Its understandable as the first thirty pages or so are the dullest. But get to Chapter 3 and it all starts to get really good.
 
haymarket said:
Obviously the events of THE HOBBIT are indeed before LOTR. So maybe they could be included .... however I get the impression from both the press release and the coverage of this in different places that they will not be rebooting that series of films either.
Click to expand...

Would be great to have it tackle the previous eras. There would be a lot that would have to be filled in, in various timelines, as not everything was fleshed out or even covered. Wonder who/how they will get to write the scripts.
 
Winchester said:
I've never been able to get through the first few chapters. I tried to read the bible once... ran into the same problem. :lol: Might have to give it a go again.
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One of the problems with writing topical satire, as time passes the underlying causes for humor are forgotten. Each of T.H.'s characters is a symbolic caricature of the many leading literary critics at Oxford, and one of the big argument of the day was the validity of biblical stories. Tho White's work was based on Mallory's Morte d'Arthur, it was stylistically admired to give the reader the puzzle of determining the identity of a satirical character since the days of Jonathan Swift. Any who read Swift today, would be unlikely to recognize any of the character's true identities. Swift was a political satirist.

When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were serialized in the newspapers, identifying the celebrities of the day, be they of the stage, military, politics or the Royal family, underlying his victims, villains and bumbling police, made his series more popular with the audience and topics to be enjoyed at the dinner table. Doyle never revealed the true identity of Dr. Watson.
 
Winchester said:
I've never been able to get through the first few chapters. I tried to read the bible once... ran into the same problem. :lol: Might have to give it a go again.
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Same. LOTR was a big bore. Looks like now we'll be getting 5 seasons of the Hobbit for TV...
 
PoS said:
Same. LOTR was a big bore. Looks like now we'll be getting 5 seasons of the Hobbit for TV...
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"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."

I checked some of your work. I wasn't impressed. I'd rather read Joe Abercrombie. You know his work? Kurosawa does LOTR. Makes GoT seem tame.

Some free advice, never set yourself up like this again. :) I learned that from telling women I was a stallion. Later they responded, "only a pony." I switched to another species, claiming I was an alpha dog, they responded, "yes, a dog."
 
OldFatGuy said:
"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."

I checked some of your work. I wasn't impressed. I'd rather read Joe Abercrombie. You know his work? Kurosawa does LOTR. Makes GoT seem tame.

Some free advice, never set yourself up like this again. :) I learned that from telling women I was a stallion. Later they responded, "only a pony." I switched to another species, claiming I was an alpha dog, they responded, "yes, a dog."
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I have no problems taking criticism for my work. And I like to state my opinions (this is a debate forum after all). If you want to bash my stuff simply because of it, well that's you.

If you can write something, let's see it.
 
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PoS said:
Same. LOTR was a big bore. Looks like now we'll be getting 5 seasons of the Hobbit for TV...
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing until I went back and read The Hobbit first.

The following trilogy made immediate sense after that.

I never like any fantasy or Sci-Fi books, but J.R.R. Tolkien is a master story teller.
 
RetiredUSN said:
I thought the same thing until I went back and read The Hobbit first.

The following trilogy made immediate sense after that.

I never like any fantasy or Sci-Fi books, but J.R.R. Tolkien is a master story teller.
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Yeah a few people recommended I read the Hobbit instead of LOTR, but honestly I have so many other books to read and so very little time. Perhaps in the near future.
 
Only took how many years?

The Silmarillion would be great to finally see, but I'm not sure how mainstream it would be. However the way it created the history of the ultra-powerful ancient inhabitants in the world that would later be referred to in LOTR/Hobbit, made it incredible as a part of that whole. That depth!

Tolkien created compelling language, and compelling history/mythology, to then give the stories of the Hobbit and LOTR a foundation that is just hard to match IMO. Complete overkill, a labor of love that no one in their right mind would spend time doing...but we got lucky that he did.

Hard to communicate just how many people his work inspired, and how many other works of art resulted in part, from it.
 
PoS said:
I have no problems taking criticism for my work. And I like to state my opinions (this is a debate forum after all). If you want to bash my stuff simply because of it, well that's you.

If you can write something, let's see it.
Click to expand...

Relax, just funnin' you. The LOTR movies put me to sleep. And Martin's rambling about food destroys the pacing of the GoT volumes.

I have published a few tomes under pen names during my younger days, way too embarrassing to place my own name on them. I'd never admit to authoring any of them and fortunately they are all out of print.

Some can write, some can paint, some can sing. Unfortunately for me, I can't do any of them well. When I sing the dog buries his head under old laundry and whines. But the wife leaves for a walk outdoors and takes the dog with her, mission accomplished.

Finished the Penguin edition of Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo a few days ago. Remarkable, tho a weak ending. Nothing like any of the movies, tho the one with Richard Chamberlain did its best to follow some of the plot lines and themes. Now I'm rereading some of Henning Mankell's works. I'm in the mood to get depressed about aging.
 
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