Lord of the Rings season 1: Release date, cast, and more to know

Amazon’s 2019 plans are big. Come September 2, 2022, they’ll officially drop their blockbuster new series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

The subtitle of the series is quite interesting, although Amazon has been very cautious about releasing details. Aside from a handful of calculated drops, they haven’t released much by way of explainers on the series, or how it’ll fill in the blanks on a lesser known time in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth history. It is clear that the show represents a big gamble for streaming services, even if they are backed by the biggest companies in history. Amazon hopes to demonstrate that it is capable of handling large prestige shows and also compete for the fantasy title that HBO won with. Game of Thrones.

As such, there’s a sense that The Rings of PowerThe rollout process is heavily deliberative. The information is starting to accumulate, which tells us a lot. SomeHere are some thoughts about the future of the series. Here’s everything we know about the story and history of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Who’s in The Rings of Power?

Image: Amazon Studios

Though the character lineup was initially limited to just a series of character posters of purely hand closeups, new details have filled in throughout the year of who’s playing who.

We’ve long known that Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) was cast as a younger Galadriel, who’ll be hunting down collaborators of the recently defeated first great Dark Lord, Morgoth. Along for the ride are Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur), scion of the underground kingdom of Khazad-dûm (aka Moria); Disa (Sophia Nomvete), a dwarven princess; and Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a newly invented elven character in a forbidden relationship with human village healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi).

As familiar faces go, The Rings of Power will feature a young Elrond (Robert Aramayo), an “ambitious” architect and politician who’s rising to prominence. We’ll also get to see Isildur (Maxim Baldry), long before he cuts the one ring to rule them all off Sauron’s hand. Fans of books will be familiar with Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), a sham elvensmith, who tricked Sauron into making rings. Gil-Galad was also known as Benjamin Walker, High King of Elfs.

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Simon Merrells will be playing Trevyn, an original character. Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh will be playing “two lovable, curious harfoots,” per Vanity Fair’s February feature on the series. The magazine reports that the showrunners have built out a pastoral, secretive harfoot society so they can have a “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Both Dead story in the margins of the bigger quests.”

In mid-April, Amazon revealed the name of a new character, Theo, who’s played by Tyroe Muhafidinis.

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

Then there’s the rest of the show’s cast: Cynthia Addai-Robinson (ArrowLenny Henry, (BroadchurchGeoff Morrell (Underground RailroadAugustus Prew, (Kick-Ass 2) — their character names were all being kept under a shroud of secrecy.

The Rings of Power: What’s the deal?

Per Vanity Fair, the show will “juggle 22 stars and multiple story lines, from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor.”

Taking place about 2,000 years before the events of the rest of the Lord of the Rings series, Galadriel is leading the charge against the remnants of the dark lord’s acolytes, particularly his apprentice Sauron, who is off the grid somewhere. We know she starts adrift at sea, where she meets Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), “a fugitive from his own past” and a new character introduced in the show. Eventually this will all lead to the main event of the series’ story and the prequel itself: The forging of the rings of power.

“Rings for the elves, rings for dwarves, rings for men, and then the one ring Sauron used to deceive them all,” co-showrunner Patrick McKay told Vanity Fair. “It’s the story of the creation of all those powers, where they came from, and what they did to each of those races.”

Which Tolkien book inspired Rings of Power?

Image: Amazon Studios

And unlike the Lord of the Rings films or the spinoff Hobbit trilogy. The Rings of Power are not based on a specific book — per se. Instead, the story builds on some of Tolkien’s Appendices, 150 pages or so of post-script that go deep on thousands of years of history. When Tolkien’s family put the rights to the Appendices (and what the author referred to as “the Second Age of Middle-earth”) up for auction, Amazon won the rights for the low, low cost of $250 million.

It is now our mission to make the Appendices timelines, genealogies, as well as other historical information, into stories that are a thousand years ahead of the Lord of the Rings movie’s time.

“Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?” McKay asked when talking to Vanity Fair.

Are there any hobbits around?

As McKay told Vanity Fair in February: “One of the very specific things the texts say is that hobbits never did anything historic or noteworthy before the Third Age. But really, does it feel like Middle-earth if you don’t have hobbits or something like hobbits in it?”

Image: Amazon Studios

Thus, the showrunners consider the harfoots to be a way for the hobbits to have their say without having to tread on (hairy) feet. And as Polygon’s Susana Polo points out, harfoots are a racial precursor to the modern hobbit, and they appear to play an important role in the narrative:

All this time we’ve been listening to the trailer’s only dialogue, a female voice saying “Have you ever wondered … what else is out there? There’s wonders in this world beyond our wandering. I can feel it.” As she finishes speaking, we cut to a shot of actress Megan Richards, which is editing language for: This is the character who said that thing. Or, the teaser editors wanted us to think that she does actually say it in the series. Take a look at these ideasThat was what she said.

What was the cost of The Rings of Power?

On top of the $250 million sum to acquire the rights (which also allow the Tolkien family to retain input on the direction of the series), it’s not exactly clear. Vanity Fair cites the production cost via New Zealand’s production documents as $462 Million, with a $108 million tax credit. But with a marketing campaign and subsequent seasons, the magazine guesses it’s north of a $1 billion price tag for the series so far.

How does the Lord of the Rings animated fit into this picture?

Picture: Weta Workshop/Warner Bros. Pictures

The War of the Rohirrim: The Lord of the RingsThe feature-length animated movie, titled “The Anime of the Century”, was announced back in 2021 and is scheduled for release on April 12, 2024. The Warner Bros. film has no connection to the Amazon series. It is set in the same universe.

The War of the RohirrimThis joint effort with Warner Bros. was called. Animation and New Line Cinema are directed by Kenji Kamiyama.Blade Runner: Black LotusPhilippa Boyens produced the executive and authored the bookThe Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit trilogies). It will tell the story of the “life and bloodsoaked times of one of Middle-earth’s most legendary figures; the mighty King of Rohan — Helm Hammerhand.”

Is The Rings of Power set to release on the date indicated?

This series premieres September 2, 2022. Amazon Prime Video is yet to announce how many episodes are coming at the same time.