When you’re spending damn near $1 billion on a TV series, you should probably have some idea of where it’s going. Time and time again, we’ve seen shows (or movie franchises) fail to stick the landing when it becomes clear that there was never any real plan in place. That said, flying by the seat of your pants does sometimes pay off, but that’s not what The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be doing across a planned five seasons. While speaking with Empire, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay revealed that they have everything planned out for the Prime Video series, right down to the very last shot.
“We even know what our final shot of the last episode is going to be,” JD Payne teased. “The rights that Amazon bought were for a 50-hour show. They knew from the beginning that was the size of the canvas – this was a big story with a clear beginning, middle and end. There are things in the first season that don’t pay off until Season 5.” The five seasons of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings during the Second Age of Middle-earth. The series will chronicle the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of Sauron, the fall of Númenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men. The Rings of Power will obviously draw from J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, but Payne explains it was like “Tolkien put some stars in the sky and let us make out the constellations.” Although the series will introduce new characters and ideas, Patrick McKay knew that it all had to fit into what Tolkien created.
The pressure would drive us insane if we didn’t feel like there was a story here that didn’t come from us. It comes from a bigger place. It came from Tolkien and we’re just the stewards of it. We trust those ideas so deeply, because they’re not ours. We’re custodians, at best.
The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will debut on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.