Amazon Buys Rights to The Lord of the Rings TV Series

Amazon has announced via press release that their quest for a "Game of Thrones" style series has landed the father of them all - The Lord of the Rings. Or at least the rights to telling prequel stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.

“The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen,” said Sharon Tal Yguado, Head of Scripted Series, Amazon Studios. “We are honored to be working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line on this exciting collaboration for television and are thrilled to be taking The Lord of the Rings fans on a new epic journey in Middle Earth.”

“We are delighted that Amazon, with its longstanding commitment to literature, is the home of the first-ever multi-season television series for The Lord of the Rings,” said Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins. “Sharon and the team at Amazon Studios have exceptional ideas to bring to the screen previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings.”

Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.

Considering that Tolkien Estate's love of suing their partners, Tolkien relatives (especially Christopher Tolkien, son of JRR) hating any interpretation of the material that isn't a word for word translation while always happy to make a deal anyway, I am hoping the Tolkien family involvement remains the cashing of checks only.

No other details were provided so official title, planned release date, era to explore or really anything else except "we have rights to do this" was revealed. An area that is ripe for exploring that would beautifully tie into the movies that are likely to remain a touchstone is to tell the story of the rise of Sauron and the forging of the One Ring. JRR Tolkien's other Middle-Earth books provided a pretty detailed history of Middle-Earth so it will be interesting to see what areas Amazon chooses to explore while seeing how writers expand on his work since often what he wrote was rather matter of fact, dry and detail oriented but not in a way that is TV friendly or honestly reading friendly either.