According to Variety and Deadline, Amazon is in the early talks of developing The Lord of the Rings TV show. It is believed that the company’s CEO Jeff Bezos is directly involved in the negotiations. The deal hasn’t been made yet, but it is estimated that Amazon would have to part with more than $250 million for rights to adapt Tolkien’s work.
Reports say that Warner Bros. and the J.R.R. Tolkien estate considered the idea of a TV show for a long time and have been looking for a partner in the recent time. Previously the Warner Bros. and the J.R.R. Tolkien estate were involved in a lawsuit, but it has been settled since. There are multiple interested parties in making The Lord of the Rings TV show, but Amazon is considered to be the main contender. We still don’t know if the series will remake the Peter Jackson’s trilogy, or potentially focus on some other parts of Tolkien’s work that were not present in the original trilogy.
With the series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, Amazon probably wishes to expand its TV show portfolio. Although multiple Amazon TV shows have received critical acclaim, the company still lacks a massive hit that would draw the audience to their streaming service. This is why Bezos instructed Amazon Studios to move away from niche, naturalistic series such as Mozart in the Jungle and head in direction of “large-scale genre programming”, which has an international appeal.
