Jeff Bezos Dropping Over A BILLION Dollars On His "Lord Of The Rings" Streaming Series Is The Flex Of All Nerd Flexes And I Love It
Bloomberg - On Sept. 2, Amazon Prime Video will premiere The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in more than 240 countries and territories around the world.
The series is based in part on the appendices, a collection of histories sketching out an elaborate backstory for Middle-earth, at the end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. Set a few thousand years before the events of The Hobbit, The Rings of Power will feature a sprawling ensemble cast of new and classic characters, opulent special effects—and a massive marketing campaign.
The stakes for The Rings of Power feel unusually high, even for a company with close to $470 billion in sales last year. From the start, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and executive chairman and a Tolkien superfan himself, has been deeply involved. In 2017 the company outmaneuvered its rivals to win the negotiations with the Tolkien estate, New Line Cinema, and publisher HarperCollins by shelling out $250 million for the rights to five TV seasons plus a potential spinoff.
Last year the government of New Zealand, where much of the series has been shot, revealed that Amazon would be spending an estimated $465 million on the first season alone. Projecting costs outward, the price tag of The Rings of Power is expected to soar past the $1 billion mark, making it quite possibly the most expensive show ever.
To put this shit in context, the new Game of Thrones "House Of The Dragon" series is estimated to be running around $20 million per episode in production costs. If you've seen either of the first two episodes, you'll agree it's fucking amazing so far and the reviews prove it's money well spent by HBO and House of Swords.
By contrast, Overlord Bezos' little television program launching this week is costing $58 million per episode.
If this were a dick-measuring contest, HBO has a very impressive piece. But Jeffrey is rocking a Dirk Diggler wrench.
But with big price tags come big expectations.
KenJac blogged this back in July. The first trailer for the series dropped and fans were very disappointed…
Luckily, the production team heard the groans and complaints loud and clear and delivered on their second attempt.
I saw the Lord Of The Rings trilogy like any other sci-fi, fiction-loving nerd back in the day, but it doesn't come close to Thrones for me in terms of entertainment value.
As much as I hate that Giants-loving, Belichick-hating, lazy piece of shit George R.R. Martin for taking his sweet time doing the one job he has which rewards him handsomely, he gets the nod when it comes to his storylines.
But that could all change with Jeff Bezos in the mix…
It turns out Overlord Bezos is a massive Tolkien and Rings fan, and I'm pretty sure there was no price he wouldn't have paid to acquire the rights to this series. If you're team Tolkien, you have to be elated that Bezos is in the driver's seat of this baby and not some penny pincher more focused on a return on investment than they are with doing the story and characters and most importantly, the fans, justice.
Like a sports team being sold and being bought by a stingy family like the McCaskey's vs. a guy who just wants to win and doesn't care about the cost like Stan Kroenke.
I give Bezos A LOT of shit but talk about the ultimate flex of all time.
Imagine growing up being obsessed with whatever it was you were your entire childhood and adolescence. In your young adulthood and middle life you strike it filthy, Scrooge McDuck level rich, and can buy anything or anyone on Earth. The world is literally your oyster. Your favorite book, comic book series, tv series, sports team, whatever it is you can buy like a trading card and do what you want with. The possibilities are endless and that's incredible.
And it's not like Jeff is just stroking checks either. This article and all reports about the series call him "heavily involved" in everything. Seeing how Game of Thrones wrapped up its last season and half, that's probably a good thing.
If Amazon is going to succeed, it’ll have to do it without Jackson, who, despite bringing in $1.85 billion across six movies and an Academy Award for best picture, isn’t involved in this return. In a 2012 interview with Le Monde, Christopher Tolkien, the former director of the Tolkien estate who passed away in 2020, said that Jackson had “eviscerated” his father’s work.
Instead, Amazon is riding into battle with showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, who previously worked on early versions of the scripts for Paramount’s Star Trek Beyond and Disney’s Jungle Cruise.
If these dollar amounts seem staggering to you, you're not alone. Anybody that grew up in the age of Summer Blockbusters, where movie price tags were greater than some third-world country's GDP's are surprised to see that TV vs. movie finances have flip-flopped, and the entertainment conglomerates are dumping way more money into TV series than movies nowadays.
Chief just covered Matt Damon explaining why he believes this is the case (very weakly) and why movies suck now-
p.s. - Check out Clem, Robbie, KFC, and Trent breaking down this week's episode of "House Of The Dragon"