Amazon Prime’s massive new series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is quite simply the most ambitious TV series ever made—and a dream fulfilled for the superfans making it
What does a billion dollars look like? Ben Walker found out the moment he walked on the set of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
“The way film is going, you expect, at best, a set with a wrap-around LED screen and then a fake rock in front of it. For most of these other shows, nothing is actually there anymore,” Walker, who plays the High King Gil-galad, tells Esquire Middle East.
“The first day we were called to set, I bent down on the ground to pick up a silk leaf that had clearly been meticulously poured over, hand cut with gold leaf embroidered into it. The amount of practical art made for this show felt genuinely infinite.”
The series, which is currently airing on Amazon Prime in the Middle East and is the first the streamer has ever dubbed into Arabic, is a work of astounding ambition. Put it this way: The first season cost an unprecedented $465 million to make, with a planned $1 billion—yes, really—set for the intended five-season run. And if there’s any story worth spending that amount to bring to life, it’s the world of English author J.R.R. Tolkien, which has resonated with generation after generation since his first book, The Hobbit, was published back in 1937.
“It just goes to show how universal J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories still are,” Markella Kavenagh, the series’ 21-year-old star who plays the halfling Nori Brandyfoot, tells Esquire Middle East. “These stories highlight the importance of community, finding strength in vulnerability. Across generations, people see themselves in these stories.”
So, where does the Rings of Power fit in, exactly? Think of it this way—The Lord of the Rings, the film adaptations of which won 17 Academy Awards at the turn of the century, is only the end of a much longer story, in which the all-powerful ‘one ring’ was finally destroyed. Here, we watch the dark lord Sauron rise to power, forge the rings, and wreak havoc, before humans, elves and dwarves all band together to defeat him—or so they think.
It’s a story, in fact, that Tolkien himself never told properly. To flesh out a sprawling tale from decades of notes and written materials, Amazon hired writers and superfans John D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who built out the story working closely with Tolkien experts and the Tolkien estate, keeping it as true as possible to what Tolkien intended, while also making changes that made it work as a series.
“In crafting this world, Tolkien always felt like he was discovering something that already existed. For us, it was more about parsing the clues he left behind, like dinosaur bones in the soil. It was a joyful process of collaboration with Professor Tolkien,” says Payne.
It was joyful for all involved. Featuring 22 (!) lead characters made up of mostly unknown and rising talent, the series was a true labour of love, and one that has only just begun to unfold, as season 2 has just started filming.
“You could tell at every corner this was being approached with a level of care and understanding in terms of story that they weren’t just saying we’re going to make this look expensive, they said, ‘we’re going to make this beautiful, and important,'” says Walker.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say, this an extraordinary place to work.”
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video