Quote:Production of the new Lord of the Rings television series will move to the UK from New Zealand, Amazon Studios has confirmed.
The as-yet-untitled fantasy epic is set thousands of years before the events in JRR Tolkien's books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58196473
There is the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme that was launched last year, believe it was because of a lack of insurance cover for certain COVID-19 related risks on commercially viable terms, which is probably more valuable than whatever incentives New Zealand was offering. Also New Zealand is effectively shuttering its borders until next year which may have had more to do with the decision to basically get out.
And of course Tolkien was English (albeit born in South Africa) so its probably only fitting something that's effectively a prequel to that universe is filmed here.
I believe Scotland was considered for series 1 before they decided on Auckland.
It's a bit of a blow for the NZ film industry though to lose a high profile project like this.
I looked it up afterwards and New Zealand was offering 25% subsidy on production costs. Amazon are (were?) spending something like £330m on that show (not sure if that was pre or post subsidy). But we all know Amazon generates more revenue itself than a lot of countries generate in GDP so I think they can afford an extra 25%.
IIRC Amazon spent $250m on just the TV rights which is insane although there was a lot of interest from the likes of HBO and Netflix plus Amazon doesn't have a fantasy series on the scale of The Witcher and Game of Thrones which is why they aggressively went after LOTR.
I don't get how anyone looks at the Lord of the Rings films and thinks "they weren't long enough".
Brekkie post_id=34209 time= user_id=976 Wrote:I don't get how anyone looks at the Lord of the Rings films and thinks "they weren't long enough".
There are worse ways to spend the best part of nine hours of your time, though once you add in the Director's Cuts that's closer to 11hrs.
Anyway the Amazon project isn't a remake of Lord of The Rings, its based on it, but its not a remake. It looks like it'll be a prequel of some sort, as it's set long before the events of The Hobbit.
It’s set in the Second Age which is 1000 years before The Hobbit.
Brekkie post_id=34209 time= user_id=976 Wrote:I don't get how anyone looks at the Lord of the Rings films and thinks "they weren't long enough".
Doubly so if it's the extended versions!