Amazon’s as-of-yet-untitled Lord of the Rings series has completed production on its first season, and will debut on September 2nd, 2022. The studio announced the release date yesterday, and with the news, provided a first look at the upcoming adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world.
In a statement, Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios said that she “can’t express enough just how excited we all are to take our global audience on a new and epic journey through Middle-earth!” while showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay said that “Living and breathing Middle-earth these many months has been the adventure of a lifetime. We cannot wait for fans to have the chance to do so as well.”
According to Amazon, the series will be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, and will follow “an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.” The series is widely expected to be set in Númenor, Tolkien’s Middle-earth equivalent of Atlantis, alongside Sauron’s rise to power amidst the age, the end of which we saw in the opening minutes of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Along the way, it looks as though we’ll see some familiar locations like Rivendell and the Misty Mountains.
The series has already been renewed for a second season (Amazon is apparently planning for at least five seasons), and boasts a massive cast of characters. The 2022 release date means that we have more than a year to go before the project debuts, and might underscore how much work the studio needs to put into its post-production work before it debuts.
That said, there isn’t any shortage of big shows coming from the studio in the meantime: Its big adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is coming in November, along with a second season of its fantasy drama Carnival Row, season three of superhero drama The Boys, and sixth and final season of The Expanse. There’s also big adaptations of William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Naomi Alderman’s The Power, Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys, a sequel season of Good Omens, and Brian K. Vaughn’s Paper Girls on their way over the next couple of years.
