Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

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Elwindil
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Elwindil »

don't forget the Really Wise Old Dude that's only there for like, two episodes but somehow EVERYONE like EVERYWHERE somehow knows exactly who he is, despite the fact that he's never even been there.
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Peter Remling
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Peter Remling »

Elwindil wrote:don't forget the Really Wise Old Dude that's only there for like, two episodes but somehow EVERYONE like EVERYWHERE somehow knows exactly who he is, despite the fact that he's never even been there.
Wow, They are modeling a character after me ? :)
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Hanasian »

This is a great overview of the whole situation Straelbora! A couple things to note from this as far as this Amazon deal goes...
Straelbora wrote:.... Fearing onerous death taxes that were in place in the UK in the late '60s, Tolkien sold the film rights to "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" (including appendices) to United Artists....

I actually could see where they could get several seasons of TV mini-series from all the Middle Earth historical summaries included here. To list some examples:
  • The Fall of Arthedain - Third Age 1974
  • The Kin Strife of Gondor - Third Age 1432 to 1448
  • The Division of Arnor - Third Age 861
  • The Claims to the Gondorian Throne - Third Age 1944
  • The Long Winter - Third Age 2957-58
  • The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen
  • The Battles with the Witch King - Third Age 1409
Etc. etc. etc. There are plenty of possibilities in the back of Return of the King. Let us hope that Bezos insists on high production values, and keeps PJ Boyens/WETA & Co as far away as possible from this. I will be optimistically reluctant, just as I was in 1999 when I became aware there were movies being made.
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Greg »

Hanasian, I agree with you that those could each make for entertaining segments...but there's so little detail written on them in primary source material that the directors would be required to be just a bit too creative. Also, seeing as how half of the storylines you just mentioned involve the dividing of kingships and/or moving around of power, it'll just turn into another Game of Thrones nightmare, and we already have that. We certainly don't need more.
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Hanasian »

Well those were just examples. Usually these multi-episode TV mini-series have several different writers and directors, and seeing a GoT style series made out of... say Arnor, isn't a far fetched possibility. I agree that the source material is barely an outline, but it will open up to all the possibilities for the screenwriters to 'fill in the blanks'. I am the first to admit the bar has been set quite low by the PJ gang, so I'm not sure this will be any worse. Of course, it could just be a TV version of one of the online video games...

I am both excited, and at the same time dreading what will come of this.
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Elleth »

Done well, I could actually quite enjoy a "fill in gaps" series set in the Angmar / Arnorian civil war era. There's certainly a lot of drama to mined there, although I suppose "human kingdoms squabble while existential evil gathers strength in the north" will read as derivative to an audience who don't know who wrote first. :/

My fear is that typical Hollywood doofues get control, and it turn it into either the voyeurism of GoT (less likely, being Amazon rather than HBO), CGI spectacle yawn-fests, or ham-fisted social commentary that drags one out of the story.
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Kortoso »

One of the liabilities of TV drama versus the silver screen, is that the money depends on constant cliff-hanger situations, e.g.: "come back after these commercial advertisements to find out what happened to your hero!" Even in an HBO-like environment, the show-runners are tempted to leave plot threads hanging to encourage viewers to come back next week.

So, no matter what happens, I expect the plot to focus around cliff-hangers. :mrgreen:
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Harper »

Here is another piece of the puzzle:
In historic move, Christopher Tolkien resigns as director of Tolkien Estate...

It turns out a “Lord of the Rings” TV series isn’t the biggest Tolkien news of the week or the month or the year.

Christopher Tolkien, son and literary heir of J.R.R. Tolkien, resigned from the Tolkien Estate. And his departure changes everything.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2017/11 ... en-estate/
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by robinhoodsghost »

Saw on the news today that an internal Amazon document shows that they are spending $500 million for the new prequel series of "The Lord of the Rings."

That's a lot more than the estimated $280 million all three movies in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy cost to make, before advertising.

They seem to be trying to catch the fantasy audience, now that Game Of Thrones is ending. The Tolkien estate is heavily evolved and with that much money, being spent, Amazon will at least try..... very, very hard to get it right.

I hope they succeed.
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Iodo »

That sounds promising, I shall wait with anticipation
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Re: Tolkien Family In Talks To Sell LOTR TV Rights

Post by Harper »

-

As Iodo said, that development does sound promising.
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