Middle-Earth TV Series Moving to United Kingdom

Amazon has announced that their Middle-Earth TV series based on The Lord of the Rings trilogy is switching filming locations.  The first season filmed in New Zealand, to take advantage of the geography that worked so well for the films and also some hefty tax breaks.  For season 2, the production will take place in the United Kingdom.

The change in location decision is simply odd. And expensive. Amazon has provided no explanation. The first season is said to cost $465 million before a 20% tax break. A tax break that would have increased to 25% for the second season. Some of that money would have been re-couped in the second season by reusing locations, sets, etc. in New Zealand except that is no longer the case. While parts of production may be moved wholesale, I wouldn't be surprised in many cases simply rebuilding the sets in UK will be cheaper. It also means laying off the now experienced Middle-Earth New Zealand crew and replacing them with UK based crew, so no savings there either.  

Deadline provided a few theories that are mostly ego driven which makes them very likely. One is the move is for the mostly UK cast to stay close to home which frankly reads as a F@#$ You to everyone else that was part of production. A dozen or so actors causing an entire production to jettison hundreds of crew sounds like a very Hollywood thing to do though.

They also thought COVID has something to do with since UK cast couldn't easily visit family it except moving "closer to home" would actually make maintaining protocols harder, not easier. Add to that, the UK's COVID response has been not great while New Zealand had it under control from almost day one. 

Their final theory is Amazon already films a lot in the UK where Amazon executives are already located. The move would allow them to keep a much closer eye on production and in theory reduce the budget. This too sounds like a very corporate thing to do. As I am sure many have directly experienced, bosses always think they are the most important reason work gets done when that is rarely the case.  So yeah, Deadline probably has it right, less to do with cost of filming in New Zealand and more to do with meeting cast and executive demands. It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact the change in venue will have in execution of the series from one season to the next.  CGI can do a whole lot of heavy lifting now after all. Press release below.

The Lord of the Rings Original Series
Sets Season Two in the U.K.
Pre-production expected to begin early 2022

CULVER CITY, Calif. – Aug. 12, 2021 – Amazon Studios announced today that its untitled The Lord of the Rings original series will film Season Two in the United Kingdom (U.K.). The shift from New Zealand to the U.K. aligns with the studio’s strategy of expanding its production footprint and investing in studio space across the U.K., with many of Amazon Studios’ tentpole series and films already calling the U.K. home.  The highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings series recently wrapped principal photography on Season One in New Zealand and is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries around the world on Friday, September 2, 2022.

“We want to thank the people and the government of New Zealand for their hospitality and dedication and for providing The Lord of the Rings series with an incredible place to begin this epic journey,” said Vernon Sanders, VP and Co-Head of TV, Amazon Studios. “We are grateful to the New Zealand Film Commission, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Tourism New Zealand, Auckland Unlimited, and others for their tremendous collaboration that supported the New Zealand film sector and the local economy during the production of Season One.” Season One post production will continue in New Zealand through June 2022, and pre-production on Season Two will begin concurrently in the U.K. after the first of the year.

“As we look to relocate the production to the U.K., we do not intend to actively pursue the Season One MoU five percent financial uplift with the New Zealand government or preserve the terms around that agreement, however we respectfully defer to our partners and will remain in close consultation with them around next steps,” said Albert Cheng, COO & Co-Head of TV, Amazon Studios.

The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, 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.

The series is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado. Wayne Che Yip is co-executive producer and directs along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström. Christopher Newman is a producer and Ron Ames isa co-producer.

A world-renowned literary work, and winner of the International Fantasy Award and Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, The Lord of the Rings was named Amazon customers’ favorite book of the millennium in 1999 and Britain’s best-loved novel of all time in BBC’s The Big Read in 2003. The Lord of the Rings books has been translated in around 40 languages and has sold more than 150 million copies.