It was an interesting turn of events when Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema, the studio that initially brought forth the live-adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, directed by Peter Jackson, had announced plans to release new movies in the franchise after signing a deal with Embracer Group AB’s Middle-earth Enterprises. The clincher was that Peter Jackson would, once again, be involved with these projects in some capacity.
Variety is now reporting the boss of Amazon Studios, Jennifer Salke, who is releasing the Lord of the Rings show, The Rings of Power, does not feel threatened by this announcement as they were shortly the sole source for new Lord of the Rings material. Salke recently spoke on the red carpet of the Creed III premiere about the newly announced projects. When Variety asked her if all these new Tolkien works would be too much for the market, she responded, “We’ll see. We love our original series. We’re extremely proud of it, and invested long term. So, we definitely think there’s enough fan love to sustain ours for a long time.”
Salke had attained the position of Amazon Studio head back in 2018 and had gone through great lengths to acquire the rights to produce television adaptations of the Rings series, also at great cost. However, the Tolkien estate has certainly had a great working relationship with New Line Cinema after the giant successes of the initial trilogy and the more recent Hobbit trilogy. The former Rings movies would gross $5 billion worldwide and win an Oscar for Best Picture for Return of the King.
Peter Jackson gave some reassuring news when it was announced that there would be more entries by stating, “Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way… we look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward.” Mike DeLuca and Pamela Abdy, the heads of Warner Bros. Pictures, and former MGM executives, which was incidentally absorbed by Amazon, gave the explanation, “For all the scope and detail lovingly packed into the two trilogies, the vast, complex and dazzling universe dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien remains largely unexplored.”