Lord of the Rings TV Series in Development - How could this POSSIBLY go wrong...

[Absolutego]

The biggest thing about the Hobbit trilogy for me is that they could've easily made it one long movie. The hobbit cartoon was one and a half hours, if you added in all of the scenes from the book that the adaption cut out it could easily fall under three hours. But Peter Jackson wanted to ride that gravy train until it derailed. Not a fan of them, honestly. They even got worse with each installment.

The forced Hobbit trilogy wasn't Jackson's decision, but Warner Brothers'. Both the Del Toro and Jackson version of the movies was a duology (that shot of Bard silhouetted with the bow after the barrel escape was supposed to be the end of movie 1), but the studio wanted to milk it for all it was worth.
The behind the scenes features (especially for movie 3) really illuminate how much studio meddling and an accelerated production schedule screwed those movies from even having the potential of being good.

 

[Finrod Felagund]

Fuck. Ok, massive bump.

Supposedly the show will be filmed in Scotland, but looks like they'll be moving back to New Zealand

Lord of the Rings TV series begins filming in New Zealand
Screw Game of Thrones; let’s go back to Mordor

03July2019
Thomas Shambler

New Zealand is gearing up for the most expensive television production of all time.
According to industry sources, Lord of the Rings TV series – which will air on Amazon Prime - will cost a whopping US$1.5-billion to make.

The production – which is slated to take five years in the making – is setting up shop in West Auckland, New Zealand. According to sources, businesses around the area have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements by Amazon Studios, to guard against leaks.

The Auckland films industry has said that two studios are already doing pre-production work on the show (in fact, it’s rumoured that select teams have been working on this project in secret for the better part of the year).
It was previously thought that the new Lord of the Rings TV series would begin filming in Scotland, but it seems that Auckland will be getting the lion’s share of the filming budget.
The new Lord of the Rings show will take place in the Second Age, a 3,441-year period in which the rings of power were forged, the war with Sauron began, the Ringwraiths were created and when Numenor island sank into the ocean.

It was also when the Elven city of Rivendell was created, and the great battle where men, elves and dwarves fought together for the first time against the evil Sauron.

A popular rumour was that the show would follow a young Aragorn, but that seems to be no longer the case.
JD Payne and Patrick McKay are writing Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings show, and neither have any writing credits to their name. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing; David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had no previous experience, and they went ahead and made Game of Thrones.
There is still a lot of secrecy around the new Lord of the Rings television show. There’s still no premiere date, nor confirmed casting choices.

It's been revealed that J.A Bayona will direct the first two episodes into the series.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s J.A. Bayona will direct Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show
A ‘never before seen story’ in Middle-earth
By Andrew Liptak@AndrewLiptak Jul 3, 2019, 12:45pm EDT

Image: New Line Cinemas
Amazon has selected a director for its upcoming Lord of the Rings TV series: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s J.A. Bayona, reports Deadline. Bayona will direct the first two episodes of the series and will serve as executive producer along with producer Belén Atienza. The announcement doesn’t reveal when the series will debut on Amazon Prime Video or what other directors will be involved in the series.In the announcement, Bayona confirmed what Amazon had been teasing earlier this year: the show will be set in the “Second Age” of Middle-earth, and it will be a “never before seen story.” Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, said in a statement that “the scope and breadth of J.A.’s world-building is exactly the right fit for our ambitions for The Lord of the Rings. He’s a passionate and collaborative director who has brought new stories to life with his multitalented producing partner, Belén.” Bayona most recently directed the latest installment of the Jurassic Park franchise, but he’s also known for films like A Monster Calls, The Impossible, and The Orphanage. He’s also worked in television before: he directed the first two episodes of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.
https://twitter.com/FilmBayona/status/1146455682696339457

In 2017, Amazon officially greenlit the series for multiple seasons, and last year, it hired writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay to write and develop the series. The studio has also been rumored to have been talking with Peter Jackson about keeping the world of the series consistent with that of his two film trilogies.
Amazon revealed earlier this year that the show would be set before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy. While his novels are better known, Tolkien developed an enormous world and history, of which the books are a tiny part. This series appears to be taking place thousands of years earlier, chronicling the rise of Sauron and the creation of the rings of power. Amazon has also teased that the kingdom of Númenor — which is essentially Tolkien’s equivalent of Atlantis — will play a part.
Tolkien’s world is a huge get for Amazon, which is working to grow its customer base as companies like Apple and Disney muscle their way into the streaming video market, especially as HBO’s Game of Thrones just ended. HBO has at least three Game of Thronesspinoff shows in the works, and other streaming platforms, like WarnerMedia, are readying their own epic shows, like a tie-in series for Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming film Dune. With Lord of the Rings, Amazon will have its own major franchise that already has widespread name recognition.

 

[FaceOfTrueHorror]

J.A. Bayona outside Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has made alright movies, so not a bad pick as long as the script is good
Writers are more worrying, as far as I can see nothing they wrote has came out yet bar Star Trek Beyond where they were uncredited writers.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Oh God. I knew this would come someday somehow.
They got Bryan Cogman from GoT into the writing board. (archived copy)

Well, if you ever wondered what elf titties and elf wang looked like, you'll soon know.

My best guess is that the series will be an adaptation of the Silmarillion, but if they want Hobbits in it, they'll have to set it at a time and place after the loss of the One Ring, since Hobbits didn't show up in the world until after then.

 

[verissimus]

This is how it can go wrong : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5ckfYxBCU

Fuck those pos.

 

[Miller]

All these people from Bad Robot in charge of every new show...

 

[Larry Anon]

I hope The Tolkien Estate has a clause in their contract that forces them to stick very close to the source material, otherwise we're going to get a transgender Aragorn.

 

[Slimy Time]

Why do I have the feeling this is going to be The Witcher 2.0. Won't follow source material, will try to distinguish itself from the trilogy of films, and will probably end up not doing so well.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Oh come on. Just because Social Justice-addled Leftist filmmakers took every other nerd property and crammed it full of wokeness and/or degeneracy, doesn't mean they'll do it to this one as well. I mean, black dwarves and lesbian elves flipping around like ninjas are what Tolkien himself would have written, had he been born in a recent enough time...

 

[qu_rahn]

I wish they would do a proper adaptation of the Children of Hurin. Lots of tasty dark bits in that story....Huwhite male hero, tragic descent into sorrowful madness, accidental incest, cool dragon boss fight, elf fags get blown the fuck out - it has it all


It's a good novel if anyone is interested in the Silmarillion mythos but doesn't want to slog through a biblical scale work

 

[Kane Lives]

So.

A picture of all the cast members came out.

I'll let you guys judge.

Source

EDIT: From the thread, the actor's names:

Spoiler

Row 1:
Robert Aramayo
Owain Arthur
Nazanin Boniadi
Tom Budge
Row 2:
Morfydd Clark
Ismael Cruz Córdova
Ema Horvath
Markella Kavenagh
Row 3:
Joseph Mawle
Tyroe Muhafidin
Sophia Nomvete
Megan Richards
Row 4:
Dylan Smith
Charlie Vickers
Daniel Weyman

 

[Jimothy]

So.

A picture of all the cast members came out.

I'll let you guys judge.

Source

EDIT: From the thread, the actor's names:

Spoiler

Row 1:
Robert Aramayo
Owain Arthur
Nazanin Boniadi
Tom Budge
Row 2:
Morfydd Clark
Ismael Cruz Córdova
Ema Horvath
Markella Kavenagh
Row 3:
Joseph Mawle
Tyroe Muhafidin
Sophia Nomvete
Megan Richards
Row 4:
Dylan Smith
Charlie Vickers
Daniel Weyman

So they decided to do casting calls for the orcs first?

 

[frozenrunner]

So.

A picture of all the cast members came out.

I'll let you guys judge.

Source

EDIT: From the thread, the actor's names:

Spoiler

Row 1:
Robert Aramayo
Owain Arthur
Nazanin Boniadi
Tom Budge
Row 2:
Morfydd Clark
Ismael Cruz Córdova
Ema Horvath
Markella Kavenagh
Row 3:
Joseph Mawle
Tyroe Muhafidin
Sophia Nomvete
Megan Richards
Row 4:
Dylan Smith
Charlie Vickers
Daniel Weyman

Imagine how much the casting people must have fumed about not being able to justify Wesley Snipes-tier dark actors.

EDIT: What the fuck is that thing in the third row?!

 

[Judge Holden]

Niggers of kiwifarms I come with dark tidings. Middle Earth just lost its greatest champion.

Christopher Tolkien has passed away today, and with him goes the single most ardent defender of the Tolkien legacy from dumb media fads and garbage pandering.

Unless his successors have the same level of dedication and honour enough to resist the dump trucks of cash offered for the rights of more of his work, we are going to see the true defilement of his stories come about in the not too distant future.

The hobbit movies, whatever the fuck the shadow of mordor series was, overpriced warhammer miniatures....even the fucking balled of bilbo baggins....we could see the ultimate heresy of cringe come to eclipse them all

 

[Imperial Citizen]

Looks like a few of the actors Nazanin, Tyroe and Sophia are of Iranian ancestry. Perhaps they are going to be Harad? Two nobles and a mumakil?

 

[Judge Holden]

Looks like a few of the actors Nazanin, Tyroe and Sophia are of Iranian ancestry. Perhaps they are going to be Harad? Two nobles and a mumakil?

If they have any fucking semblance of following the lore then this would be the case, especially since this is all being pitched as being set in the period where Numenor is becoming corrupted by its own arrogance and forming an increasingly aggressive empire with colonies like Umbar and the proto black-numenoreans are generally being dicks to everyone they meet even if they are not fully corrupted by Sauron yet, which would be a perfect time/place to include non white characters as protagonists and heroes in the story since they have actual reasons to be involved with the plot.

Hell Big Nigga Ar-pharazon's triumphant "COMETH DOWN FROM BARAD DUR AND SUCKETH UPON MINE FLESHY WESTERNESSE POLE!" march against Sauron started in Umbar so assuming this is one of the main plotlines it makes perfect sense for haradarim to be involved

Come to think of it, maybe the more Creatura specimens are going to be portraying Druedain characters

 

[Safir]

Imagine how much the casting people must have fumed about not being able to justify Wesley Snipes-tier dark actors.
EDIT: What the fuck is that thing in the third row?!

Sophia Nomvete, she's a British theater theatre actress. That was by far the most horrifying photo of her; she looks human on all other photos and attractive on some.

This is as close to the same angle as I could find (predictably, Google Images can't tell her from the rest of the cast, today resulting in more news coverage than any of them had in aggregate). Not hot, but female and human.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Oh I can't wait to see this shit show unfold.

 

[Miller]

Christopher Tolkien has passed away today, and with him goes the single most ardent defender of the Tolkien legacy from dumb media fads and garbage pandering.

Unless his successors have the same level of dedication and honour enough to resist the dump trucks of cash offered for the rights of more of his work, we are going to see the true defilement of his stories come about in the not too distant future.

I don't know if it's true but I saw on /tv/ a couple of days ago a post from someone who claimed that the Tolkien estate removed the last Tolkien from the board right before signing a contract with Amazon.

 

[friedshrimp]

Bet you anything this is gonna the new piece of media the woke journalists are gonna latch onto and accuse us of being bigots if we don't like it. See Ghostbusters 2016, the Last Jedi, and Disney's Little Mermaid remake.