The Lord of the Rings is an iconic book.  It was a very successful movie, and they both might pale to what the television series is potentially going to do. 

A story in The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Amazon is going tp spend $465 million just to make season one of the show come to life. 

It’s a staggering number, and it certainly blows away not only what the projected amount was expected to be, but also the amount of other huge productions that have made it to the small screen and streamers. 

Take Game of Thrones on HBO for instance. The price tag on that huge hit was about $100 million per season. When the show launched it cost about $6 million per episode, and as actors salaries went up, and the production became more elaborate, it capped off at roughly $15 million per episode in season eight. 

Friends, a show that launched 27 years ago, cost about $10 million per episode in its last few seasons, but that was primarily because the cast had become superstars, and their salaries rose with their fame and the show’s success.

Same thing with another big hit from the 1990’s, ER. That show was coming in at about $13 million per episode. 

While the $450 million price tag is eye-popping, there’s some extra costs that go into the first season that most shows don’t have to account for. 

A $250 million payment to acquire the rights to the J.R.R. Tolkien property would be one of them. 

Plus, the elaborate sets, props and costumes that it takes to produce a fantasy series like this are incredibly high. 

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you will be quite pleased with this show.  Here’s the official description of it from Amazon. 

The Lord of the Rings “brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”

The first season should be available for streaming in the next 8-12 months. 

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