Excitement for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is approaching fever pitch among fantasy fans, with the series set to debut on the streaming service next month.
And with a budget of over $1bn for its first season alone, you’d want to hope that people are excited to see this latest adaptation of Tolkien’s world. Set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, thousands of years before Frodo Baggins and his band of merry hobbit folk would come along, the series is set to tell the story of how the rings of power were forged.
Given the fact that some of Tolkien’s characters live to be thousands of years old, there are likely to be a few familiar faces cropping up in season one. One important figure from the much-loved film trilogy will not be involved though.
Read more: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power release date and cast on Amazon Prime Video
Is Peter Jackson working on Amazon’s The Rings of Power?
The short answer is: no. It would seem that Jackson was initially contacted about being part of the project several years ago but has never heard from the producers since.
The director has said he was told they would be in touch once they had some of the episodes written, but the Kiwi never heard back from the makers of the Amazon series. This is perhaps surprising to some given the overwhelming success of Jackson’s trilogy of Lord of the Rings films.
JRR Tolkien’s son Christopher - who was head of the Tolkien estate until his death in 2020 - previously said the films had “eviscerated” his father’s books, though. Furthermore, the films are owned by Warner Bros, while Amazon is creating the new TV series, so perhaps keeping things separate was easier for legal reasons.
What has Peter Jackson said about The Rings of Power?
Despite Jackson claiming he had been “ghosted” by the show's producers, he seems fairly magnanimous in his feelings towards watching the upcoming series. He told a Hollywood Reporter podcast: “I’m not the sort of guy who wishes ill will.
"Filmmaking is hard enough. If somebody makes a good film or TV show, it’s something to celebrate. The one thing I am looking forward to is actually seeing it as a perfectly neutral viewer.”
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