Amazon (and Netflix) Pursue a 'Lord of The Rings' TV Series (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes The Verge: Amazon Studios has been looking for a way to duplicate HBO's success with Game of Thrones, and the company may have found a solution: adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings into a TV series. Variety reports that the company is currently in talks with Warner Bros. Television and the late author's estate, and while discussions are said to be in "very early stages," it is clearly a high priority, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos himself involved in the negotiations.

Amazon isn't the only one looking into the rights, according to Deadline, which reports that the Tolkien Estate is looking to sell the television rights to the iconic fantasy series to the tune of $200-250 million, and has approached Netflix and HBO as well. There appears to be some strings attached: the rights might not encompass all of the characters in the story. HBO has reportedly passed on the project.
"We can hear the pitch now," jokes The Verge. "It's like Game of Thrones, only with a series of books that are actually finished."

Comments

"... might not encompass all of the characters"

[sheramil]

So, no Tom Bombadil? Again?

Re:"... might not encompass all of the characters"

[Freischutz]

...There appears to be some strings attached: the rights might not encompass all of the characters in the story. HBO has reportedly passed on the project.

So, no Tom Bombadil? Again?

With the Tolkien estate having caught the greed virus it's probably $250 million just for the rights to the basic story and then a long price list for every one of the main character you want to include, starting with 30 million for Gandalf, another 30 million for Frodo, 20 million for Aragon, 12 million for Legolas and Gimli and 5 million for each of the other company members. The right to show goblin and orc hordes is sold in batches of 10.000 for a million dollars each so if you want a 200.000 man army of orcs and goblins for the battle of the fields of Pelennor it's going to set you back another 20 million. Sauron appearances are sold time wise at a rate of 250.000 dollars per second (that includes showing just the great eye) but we'll throw in Samwise for free, just as a token of good will.

But all sarcasm aside, perhaps Netflix, Hulu and Amazon should clue into the fact that there are other great works of fantasy and science fiction (The Expanse being an example of a really good one that came a bit out of left field for me when I found it in my Netflix recommendations list) and that they might be better off picking one of those rather than trying to flog the decomposing horse carcass that Peter Jackson and his gang turned LOTR and especially the slapstick riddled (three part!!) mess they turned The Hobbit into in the vain hope that the poor dead critter will pull the stone one more circle around the mill. I suppose that with Islamophobia being in vogue it will be a couple of decades before we get a good filming of the Dune trilogy but there is the Earth Sea trilogy, (Dare I say it) Northern Lights, ... I'm sure people here can ad a few dozen names to that list.

Please no

[Ayano]

To take a cherished series that already has a complete movie adaption? Either we're watching the events unfold with un-filmed scenes from the books at a slow rate... or we'll be getting non-lore spin-offs in middle earth.

Both sound awful.

Re:Please no

[DontBeAMoran]

J.J. Abrams ruined both Star Wars and Star Trek. Let's make it a trifecta and also ruin LotR.

...

"I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of nerds suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly speechless. I fear something terrible will happen." - Darth Picard of Middle Earth

Re:Please no

[fizzer06]

Pretty sure "J. J." initials stand for "Jar Jar".

Re:Please no

[alvinrod]

I don't think we need another adaptation of Lord of the Rings, but I think it would be fucking awesome to get a series that focuses around the Silmarillion. There's enough there to make several seasons worth of a show and you can easily use all of other Tolkien's works set in Middle Earth if the series is popular enough. By the time you get through all of that, perhaps move on to the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but when there's so much other wonderful material from the man out there, why retread the same ground, especially when the Peter Jackson movies were quite good for the time and still hold up rather well.

Missing the whole point

[MrLogic17]

Anyone who's comparing LOtR to GoT clearly doesn't understand anything about Tolkien and why he was writing his stories. ...and if you mess with something you don't understand, you will wreck it. Badly.

I know how the Lord of the Rings TV series ends

[Neo-Rio-101]

At the end of the new Lord of the Rings TV series, the hobbits must come up against a danger worse than Sauron.

They must face off against the ghost of JRR Tolkien, whom they end up flogging to death.

Enough already

[DontBeAMoran]

HBO has Game of Thrones? Alright.

Unless all you're planning to do is steal their audience, it won't happen. Stop pandering the same audience over and over again. You need something different to grab the people who still don't have Netflix/Amazon Video/HBO Now/etc or who will subscribe to a second or third streaming service.

Right now, there is a serious lack of real/good science-fiction series. The 100 is good but while it started out as science-fiction, it sort of derailed into a game of thrones clone. What next? A planet of the apes tv show reboot?

If you don't want to take risks there's plenty of good, well-known science-fiction titles that could probably make a good tv show: Terminator (pick it up where The Sarah Connor Chronicles dropped the ball, it seems the show got cancelled just as it was beginning to be interesting), Predator (not purely science-fiction, but hey, it's a known title), Aliens (plenty of spaceships and colonies to be infested), etc.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see a reboot of Knight Rider done with a Google Maps car, a Tesla or something.

Hell, talk to Valve and get the rights to make a TV show from Half-Life/Portal. GlaDOS is the perfect vilain you kinda root for, in secret. She's like a Bond vilain from the old movies.

What about a comedy spy tv show? Make a show with the worst spies possible, something similar to Johnny English or Frank Drebin.

ANYTHING except another fucking show with kings, swords and shitty politics and shit like that.

Re:Overrated

[Dan East]

Really? J.K. Rowling over Tolkien?? Are we talking about the same Rowling who just invents things out of thin air every time she needs a plot device? The same author who invoked time travel in one single plot line but for some reason time travel was never used in any story before or after? I'm sorry, but as a fantasy author, Rowling is awful. I'll give you that Tolkien isn't known for "deep characterization", however I believe his plot lines are far more interesting and logical than Rowling's. Stephen King has incredibly "deep characterization" in The Stand, but that book totally falls apart, invoking deus ex machina in the end because he couldn't resolve the story even after killing off half the main characters. It's purely a matter of personal preference, but I prefer Tolkien's heavy-handed, consistent style of writing that is logical and historic in nature over Tolkien or even King's fantasy works.

They have other options

[grasshoppa]

There are so many beloved fantasy epics out there, it might be wise to avoid the almost-blasphemy of redoing LoTR.

Off the top of my head, I'd do Wheel of Time. Lacking that, then I'd buy the rights to the Stormlight Archive.

Silmarillion

[way2slo]

If you want to make a very good Tolkien based TV series, don't re-hash The Lord of the Rings or even The Hobbit.

Use the Silmarillion.

It won't happen as long as Christopher Tolkien is alive, but once the controlling rights to the book are out of his hands it could be done.

Lots of stories there, The Oath of Feanor, The Fall of Morgoth, Beren and Luthien, & The Rise and Fall of Gondolin to name a few. Lots of brand new characters, except for Galadriel but she does not do much. "Main Characters" die left and right. Still, lots of room to do your own thing. The book spans thousands of years and several Ages, but the series could just focus on the very end of the Age of Bliss to the end of the First Age. Competent writers could get at least 5-7 season out of it with plenty of action. Lots of terrible stuff going on then. 6 Great Battles, plus lots of minor skirmishes. Wurms, Dragons, Balrogs, etc.