Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series is getting closer to production, and with that comes news of the budget, and it’s a pile of gold fitting of Smaug himself.
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According to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon is set to spend around NZ$650 million – $465 million in U.S. dollars – on season one of the series. Previous estimates had suggested the series would run around $500M USD for multiple seasons.
Stuart Nash, New Zealand Minister for Economic Development and Tourism, told Morning Report, “What I can tell you is Amazon is going to spend about $650 million in season one alone. This is fantastic, it really is… this will be the largest television series ever made.”
Documents that were released about the series suggest Amazon is currently planning to film up to five seasons in New Zealand, and there is a possibility of a spinoff series.
For comparison, the budget for Game of Thrones was around $100M per season.
The series is touted as: “brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”
No premiere date has been announced as of yet.
