Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel series is costing huge numbers

According to an exclusive report by Reuters the new Amazon Lord of the Rings prequel series could cost the company over $500m.

According to the report Amazon paid “$250 million for the rights alone” and that following marketing and production for two seasons could push the costs over the $500m mark.

These sky-high costs would mean that the show would cost Amazon triple the amount that The Man In The High Castle cost, and as such it would be expected to bring in triple the amount of subscribers. A tall ask for any show given that The Man In The High Castle brought in 1.15 million new subscribers to Amazon’s version of Netflix, Amazon Prime. 

As a massive fan of the Lord of the Rings film series and books I was at first very negative towards the concept of a TV series being produced by Amazon, especially with the departure of Christoper Tolkien from the Tolkien Estate’s board shortly before the announcement was made, making it feel as though he didn’t agree with the project. But with a budget this large it is at the very least a positive sign and hopefully the story and production value will be worthy of the Lord of the Rings legacy.

With that being said the influx of money into a production does not equal quality, and whilst HBO are currently knocking everything out of the park with shows in the similar vein such as Game of Thrones and WestWorld it does not mean that Amazon are guaranteed to have a major success on their hands.