Netflix planned several Lord of the Rings series before Amazon intervened

The Rings: The Rings of Power series will launch on Amazon Prime on September 2, which brings us back to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when Galadriel and Elrond were still young. Famous tabloids fans and critics have already watched the first two parts and are satisfied with the end result (even if not everyone is completely happy), but it is possible that the series would be judged very differently if not on Amazon, but on Netflix it checks.

A new report has indicated that both Netflix and HBO applied for the rights to the Lord of the Rings TV series before Amazon secured the deal. The The Wall Street Journal She mentioned that Netflix had identified several projects for The Tolkien Estate, which take care of Tolkien’s legacy: in addition to the main series, it wanted to create several spin-offs. It is understood that the company’s president, Ted Sarandos, was personally involved in the negotiations, even sending gift packages and Roku devices to members of the Tolkien family to persuade them.

TWSJ added that, based on its sources, the Tolkien Estate (and Warner Bros., which is said to handle the TV rights with them) is expected to make between $50 million and $70 million from the deal, but Amazon ended up shelling out nearly 250 million dollars. for them. According to later estimates, Amazon spent $465 million in season one, so Jeff Bezos must have gotten deep into their pockets.

An interesting addition is that the parent company of THQ Nordic, Embracer Group, recently made a purchase: they are buying Middle-earth Enterprises, which means that they will acquire most of the rights to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Tolkien’s other businesses. (Except for the literary legacy it remained in the hands of the Tolkien Estate.) This way, Embracer can decide in the future who can shoot movies, make video games, release action figures, etc.

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