A BIG LEAP FOR AMAZON

Fifteen years after the conclusion of Peter Jackson’s “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy, the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien is offering the rights to a TV series based on the books. The cost of those rights is in the neighborhood of $200-$250 million. Adding the production costs and advertising, the total cost will be well over half a billion dollars. The two current front-runners for the rights are Netflix and Amazon, but Amazon is the likely winner. HBO turned down the offer almost immediately. HBO already has “Game Of Thrones” and future spinoffs, so they probably won’t be taking on anything fantasy related for a while. Netflix and Amazon want it so they can compete with “Game Of Thrones.” The two book series are very different though. “Lord Of The Rings” doesn’t have the graphic content and political intrigue that ‘Game of Thrones” does, and they were published 40 years apart. Also one of them is finished, and the other isn’t. Amazon usually sticks to small, niche shows, but now they’re making a big move and trying to create a series that will get the attention of the world and boost their number of customers. Fans are concerned that the series won’t be very good and that it will tarnish their memory of the trilogy. Whoever gets the rights will make sure that such an expensive series will pay off for them though. Even though the extended version of the trilogy is over ten hours, there’s still more to the story, more of the books that haven’t even been touched. The series could either retell the story or explore different elements of it. Casting will be very important, and certain decisions can make or break it. This TV series is obviously in its very early stages, but it has a lot of potential.