The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

• 1. Introduction

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  Jeff Bezos personally joined negotiations when Amazon pursued The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. That level of executive involvement was, by industry standards, distinctly unusual for a programming deal. When the rights were secured on the 13th of November 2017, industry commentators had one word for the acquisition price: "insane." Many saw the project as more of a reputational risk than a financial one, given Bezos's wealth. Yet Bezos had already given Amazon Studios a mandate to create a fantasy epic matching the scale of HBO's Game of Thrones.

  The deal committed Amazon to five seasons of television. The expected budget would make this the most expensive television series ever made. Two writers with no credited work at the time won the job of building a story from fragments of mythology. Their task was to dramatize thousands of years of Middle-earth history in a compressed television format. The questions that shaped the production were not small ones: Could two untested showrunners carry the weight of Tolkien's legacy? Would a new cast earn the trust of dedicated readers? And would a story set thousands of years before the familiar novels find a global audience? The answers began to take shape in July 2018, when J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were hired. Director J. J. Abrams had championed them, having collaborated with the pair on an unproduced Star Trek film.

• 2. The Untold Second Age

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  Payne and McKay pitched a story that would expand five minutes of film prologue into what they called "50 hours of television." McKay articulated the ambition plainly: "We didn't want to do a side thing. A spin-off or the origin story of something else. We wanted to find a huge Tolkienian mega epic." Payne described the Second Age of Middle-earth as "an amazing, untold story." Amazon held television rights only to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The Silmarillion and Tolkien's other detailed histories of the Second Age were off-limits. Their raw material was the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which covered the period mostly in brief references.

  Simon Tolkien, a novelist and the grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, joined the project to help develop story and character arcs. He is credited in the series as a "series consultant." Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey worked on the project in its early stages but departed after revealing details without permission. Griff Jones was hired as a Tolkien "loremaster," approaching the source texts the way a historical advisor would treat actual historical records. The Tolkien Estate was prepared to veto any story changes that contradicted Tolkien's writings across all of his published works. Writers were free to add original characters and details, provided those felt, in the showrunners' phrase, "Tolkienian."

  Thousands of years separate the beginning of the Second Age from its end in Tolkien's history. That span created a structural problem the writers had to solve. Human characters would have lived, aged, and died many times over across such a stretch. Non-linear storytelling was considered as a solution, but the showrunners feared it would prevent audiences from forming emotional attachments to the characters. The estate agreed to allow a compressed timeline, on one condition: the major events had to occur in the same order Tolkien established. A disclaimer now appears in the end credits, acknowledging that some elements are "inspired by, though not contained in, the original source material."

  Leith McPherson, who served as dialect coach on the Hobbit films, returned to guide the use of Tolkien's fictional languages in the series. She established distinct dialects for each culture of Middle-earth. Carl F. Hostetter, head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, also consulted and provided translations. Because Second Age dialogue was not available for direct adaptation, the writers looked to repurpose what they could from the texts they held rights to use. The first season would be filmed in New Zealand, the same country where Jackson had shot both of his Tolkien trilogies.

• 3. From Auckland to Surrey

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  Filming for the first season began in Auckland in February 2020, with director J. A. Bayona leading the first two episodes. Six weeks into production, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a complete halt in mid-March. That pause ran into a planned production break. The crew used the time to review early footage and begin writing on the second season. Filming resumed at the end of September 2020. Wayne Che Yip and Charlotte Brändström directed the remaining episodes of the season. Production wrapped on the 2nd of August 2021.

  The week after that wrap, Amazon announced that all future seasons would be made in the United Kingdom. Several factors drove the decision. Amazon was already investing heavily in UK studio space for other productions, and New Zealand's pandemic-era border policies had created operational difficulties. The Tolkien Estate also preferred the UK. Tolkien drew on British landscapes when writing his books, and the estate wanted the series filmed there. Filming on the second season began on the 3rd of October 2022. Charlotte Brändström was joined by directors Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper. Principal filming took place at Bray Film Studios and Bovingdon Airfield, near London. Additional location work was done across the UK and in the Canary Islands. Production wrapped in June 2023, in the middle of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike.

  For the third season, production moved to Shepperton Studios in Surrey, after Amazon signed a long-term exclusive arrangement for new facilities there in 2022. Pre-production was underway by February 2025, with filming confirmed to have begun in May. Production wrapped in mid-December. Pre-production for a fourth season is planned to begin in late 2026, with filming set to start in early 2027.

  Amazon provided unlimited cloud storage for the first season's production, making it the first television series to operate on a completely cloud-based infrastructure. All footage and technical data could be accessed by any crew member anywhere in the world. This proved especially valuable when the pandemic cut off physical access to the set. The primary visual effects vendors for the first season were Wētā FX and Industrial Light & Magic. All work was overseen by visual effects supervisor Jason Smith.

  Production designer Ramsey Avery defined the visual character of the first season. The showrunners gave him several guiding principles: the world should feel inhabited rather than constructed, and sets should be built physically wherever possible. Each culture of Middle-earth had to be visually distinct, and the design had to honor Tolkien. Illustrator John Howe, a main conceptual designer on both of Jackson's film trilogies, also returned to work on the series. The production was designed to reflect a "golden age" of Middle-earth, set thousands of years before Jackson's films. For the second season, Avery was replaced by production designer Kristian Milsted, and costume designer Kate Hawley was succeeded by Luca Mosca. Howard Shore, who had composed the scores for both of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogies, was brought in to write the main title theme.

• 4. Sound Built from Vibration

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  Bear McCreary was confirmed to compose the full original score in July 2022. He was contractually prohibited from quoting any of Shore's themes from Jackson's films. McCreary described the project as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" and hoped to create a "continuity of concept" between his new work and Shore's. He wrote more than 15 new themes for the series.

  The title sequence was entrusted to Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore, of the creative studio Plains of Yonder. They were given no material from the series when they began. Instead, they drew on Tolkien's own creation myth, in which the world of Middle-earth comes into being through music. That concept led them toward cymatics, the science of making sound visible in matter. Working with a homemade Chladni plate and slow motion footage, they explored what shapes different sounds could draw from sand particles. The sounds tested included Gregorian chants, rock and roll, and whale calls.

  For the final sequence, Crawford and Bashore used a rig two feet wide, programming tones to generate specific cymatic patterns. These included diamonds and swirls. The shapes were filmed practically. The visual effects team then worked to replicate the imprecise, living motion of those real results for shots carrying imagery from Tolkien's writings. That imagery includes the Two Trees of Valinor, the eight-pointed star of the character Fëanor, and geographic features of Middle-earth. The sequence also visualizes each set of Rings of Power: nine rings for Men, seven for Dwarves, three for Elves, and the ruling One Ring. The sequence took seven months to complete.

  Sauron's growing reach is reflected in the second season's updated title sequence, where red sand grains form what the creators called "evil tendrils." New imagery representing the Doors of Durin, the Balrog, and Morgoth's crown was also added. Amazon considered the January 2022 reveal of the series' full title to be the opening move of its entire marketing campaign.

• 5. Forging the Title

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  Klaus Obermeyer directed Amazon's title announcement video, in which the letters of the series' name were physically cast from molten metal. A reading of the Ring Verse poem from The Lord of the Rings played in voiceover. Special effects supervisor Lee Nelson worked alongside Obermeyer. Douglas Trumbull, a veteran special effects supervisor, served in an advisory role.

  Filming took place in Los Angeles in late 2021. Foundryman Landon Ryan handled the metalwork, and the crew tested different combinations of metals, sparkler dust, argon pours, and liquid hydrogen. They settled on a mixture of bronze and aluminum, poured into molds made of compressed sand that could be reused multiple times. A Phantom Flex4K camera recorded the pour at 5,000 frames per second, producing footage slow enough to show every detail of the molten flow. For the final title card, the forged letters were inscribed with Elvish writing and mounted on a large piece of redwood. Staff from the Tolkien fan website TheOneRing.net and entertainment journalists were invited to watch the filming. Prologue Films handled previsualization for the sequence. They later recreated the final title card digitally, preserving the look and lighting of the live action photography.

  John Howe designed maps of Middle-earth's Second Age for the series' early social media marketing. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey oversaw them to ensure accuracy. They drew on maps of Númenor during the Second Age as well as Third Age maps created by Tolkien's son Christopher. Despite those precautions, HarperCollins received complaints from fans about two mistakes found on the maps once they appeared online.

  Brian Sibley, a Tolkien scholar, compiled and edited a new book titled The Fall of Númenor. He drew on the writings of J. R. R. and Christopher Tolkien about the Second Age. It was published in November 2022, timed to benefit from interest the first season had generated, and featured illustrations by Alan Lee. A new edition of Tolkien's 1962 poetry collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was released in August 2024 to coincide with the second season. The series premiered in more than 240 countries and territories simultaneously on the 1st of September 2022.

• 6. Numbers and Verdict

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  Twenty-five million viewers globally watched the first two episodes within their first 24 hours on Prime Video. That made it the service's biggest premiere ever and marked the first time Amazon had publicly disclosed viewership figures for Prime Video. By December 2022, more than 100 million viewers had watched the first season. It had become the most-watched series in Prime Video's history. Vernon Sanders, the platform's television co-head at the time, called it "a tremendous success." He noted that Amazon measured the show's impact not only in viewing figures but also in new Prime Video subscriptions and downstream business effects. He cited spikes in the sales of Tolkien's books as one example.

  In April 2023, a report found that only 37 percent of the first season's initial US viewers had finished it. The rate among international viewers was 45 percent. By October 2024, more than 150 million viewers had watched the first season, and it remained Prime Video's most-watched season globally.

  The second season, which premiered in August 2024, saw a significant decline in US viewership at launch. Analytics companies Samba TV and Luminate each calculated roughly half as much US viewership for the second season's premiere as the first's. Amazon reported 40 million viewers globally in the first 11 days of the second season's release. That figure grew to 55 million ahead of the season finale. By February 2025, the second season had become Prime Video's most-watched returning season measured by total hours watched. Lesley Goldberg of The Ankler reported that the second season was completed by 10 percent more of its initial viewers than the first season had been.

  Parrot Analytics estimated that the series brought in $367 million in subscriber revenue for Prime Video by the end of 2024. That placed it ahead of The Wheel of Time, a fellow Prime Video fantasy series that generated an estimated $360 million. The Wheel of Time's first season ran a budget of around $80 million, giving it a higher return on investment.

  Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes calculated that 84 percent of 487 critics' reviews for the first season were positive. The average score was 8 out of 10. The critics' consensus praised the show's visual presentation and its rendering of Middle-earth, while suggesting the writing had room to grow. Metacritic assigned a weighted average of 71 out of 100 from 40 reviews, a result it classified as "generally favorable." Particular praise went to the visuals and designs. Criticisms focused on pacing, overall structure, and what some called mystery box-style storytelling. For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes calculated 85 percent positive reviews from 173 critics, with an average of 7.25 out of 10. Metacritic scored it 67 out of 100 from 25 reviews. Critics broadly praised production values, design work, and the score, while noting continuing pacing problems and too many concurrent storylines.

  The first season received six Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nominations and won both of its Art Directors Guild Award nominations. Of its seven Visual Effects Society Award nominations, it won three. The second season won a British Academy Television Craft Award among its nominations. The audience response, however, told a more complicated story.

• 7. The Audience and the Long Game

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  A "cacophony" of online fan discourse accompanied the series' early marketing, with concerns about accuracy to Tolkien running through much of it. After the premiere, the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes fell considerably short of the critics' score. Some of that gap was attributed to review bombing tied to "perceived cultural or political issues." The more specific focus of complaints widely covered in the press was the casting of non-white actors. Many commentators characterized this backlash as racist. Amazon conducted a study with thousands of audience members, gathering episode-by-episode responses across the first season.

  The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes the day after the second season premiered was nearly double the first season's opening day figure. Sanders said the second season had not faced the same "racist hostility" as the first. Amazon's own research found the majority of viewers to be open-minded and engaged with the series. Sanders said they were not following what he called "an agenda that's separate from the show itself."

  No third season had been formally ordered when the second season premiered in August 2024. This led to public speculation about whether Amazon would see through its commitment to the series. When asked about contingency plans, McKay was direct: "We're not anticipating that. We're making our show and going all the way." The third season was officially confirmed by Prime Video in February 2025. Charlotte Brändström and Kate Hazell were named executive producers for the season.

  Lesley Goldberg, reporting in The Ankler in April 2026, wrote that Jeff Bezos was personally protecting the series regardless of cost. Amazon's new television head, Peter Friedlander, remained committed to seeing the production through to its planned conclusion. Production costs for the second and third seasons had by then been "dramatically reduced" through the UK's tax incentives. The estate's deal had also included a "kill fee" for each season Amazon chose not to produce. Amazon had decided, however, that it would not pursue a spin-off series.

  Development on a fourth season was confirmed in May 2026. The third season is set to premiere in November 2026. Payne and McKay, while writing the first season, had already envisioned elements of the fifth and final season. Among those was what they conceived as the series' last shot. That shot remains some years away.