Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, made an announcement at the 2018 Television Critics Association summer press tour, regarding the writing team that will adapt Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series.
JD Payne and Patrick McKay, who will be writers on the upcoming Star Trek 4 film (which is expected to start production in early 2019, according to actor Simon Pegg), will write and develop the highly anticipated online series.
Salke explained at Amazon’s presentation on the night, “It been a very thoughtful process… it’s such a vast world, there are so many different ways to go with that project, and thanks to Sharon Tal Yguado [Head of Amazon’s Event Series Division], she led the charge on bringing so many different people to pitch us… there was a lot of time spent talking about ideas and different takes. We’re very excited to bring Payne and McKay on to move to the next step of this development process.”
Neither Payne nor McKay attended the event, but both conveyed their excitement for the series, “The rich world that J.R.R. Tolkien created is filled with majesty and heart, wisdom and complexity,” stated the duo. “We are absolutely thrilled to be partnering with Amazon to bring it to life anew. We feel like Frodo, setting out from the Shire, with a great responsibility in our care — it is the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime.”
Slake did not give away any extra details about the series other than the fact that it will act as a prequel to Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”. It has also been reported that Amazon will be investing $1 billion for around 5 seasons of the Lord of the Rings, which is amazing news for fans out there that want to see more from the world Tolkien created.
This isn’t the first fantasy series to get the high budget makeover (albeit, possibly the biggest), with HBO’s Game of Thrones, adapted from the much beloved “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin, which will air its final series next year. As well as Netflix’s The Witcher Series, which will follow main character Geralt of Rivia through the beautifully crafted stories in Andrzej Sapkowski book series set before the events of the famous video game series.
No release date is currently confirmed.
By Jimmy Ioannou
Images provided by New Line/Warner Bros.
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