The trailers just keep coming. At last weekend’s Comic-Con another The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power trailer was released.
Just over a week ago, Amazon released its first full-length trailer, which followed its teaser.
The Comic-Con trailer was shared during a 90-minute panel which was being hosted by Lord of the Rings superfan Stephen Colbert. It included 21 cast members alongside showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay and Executive Producer Lindsey Weber – making it an epic event for all Middle-earth fans.
As with the previous trailers, the new clip showed audiences the Elvish sanctuary Rivendell, human villages, dozens of new characters, giant boats, and sprawling landscapes.
But of course, always lingering is the threat of dark forces coming to wreak havoc in the world of Middle-earth and the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) trailer plays much more into this growing threat than the two previous glimpses into Amazon’s new universe.
The SDCC trailer opens with a young woman in white on a desolate battlefield (fans will know that it’s Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel, one of the world’s most important elves and Cate Blanchett’s old LOTR character) placing a helmet onto a pyre of helmets. It’s almost certainly a commemoration of the soldiers who died wearing them and sets the tone for the rest of the three-minute clip.
“We thought the war, at last, was ended,” says a voice ominously.
As well as battle scenes and the introduction of new villainous characters, there is even a moment where an old man clasps the hands of a child and says: “Have you heard of him lad? Have you heard of Sauron?”
The new series is a prequel to all the drama that plays out in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s all been taken from the expansive material laid out in J. R. R Tolkien’s The History of Middle-earth, a 12-volume series of books that collates and analyses Tolkien’s writing, notes, poetry, languages and more.
Then the trailer shows the forthcoming series will follow the tale of the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of super baddie Sauron, the worlds of Elves and Men and the fall of Númenor – an island kingdom that was known as the greatest civilization of Men – although actual details about time-frames, plot-lines and characters have been kept under wraps.
The new series is made up of a cast of relatively new faces, including Charlie Vickers, who will play Halbrand, Markella Kavenagh who will play Elanor ’Nori’ Brandyfoot, Nazanin Boniadi who will play Bronwyn, Cynthia Addai-Robinson who will play Tar-Míriel and Ismael Cruz Córdova who will play Arondir.
Some more familiar faces include Lenny Henry, Joseph Mawle, who played Benjen Stark in Game of Thrones, theatre actor Charles Edwards who was nominated for an Olivier award for his portrayal of Gore Vidal at the Young Vic this year in Best of Enemies, and Benjamin Walker, whose recent credits include The Ice Road and the film Love Is Blind.
The series has been written by JD Payne and Patrick McKay – rising feature writers whose credits include Star Trek 4. According to Deadline, it was JJ Abrams who recommended the two writers for the job.
With giant boots to fill, JA Bayona will take up Peter Jackson’s place behind the camera. Bayona’s past work includes 2007’s Spanish horror The Orphanage and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Speaking to Vanity Fair in February, Bayona said: “Can you imagine going back to such a beloved world and [facing] the high bar of the Peter Jackson movies? We were, all the time, very aware of the massive expectations.”
The fantasy show has been a wildly expensive endeavour: according to Vanity Fair, the eight-episode series may have cost the studio over $1 billion to create.
Lord of the Rings has a passionate global fan base. Each of the Lord of the Rings films pulled in just under $1 billion worldwide, while 2012’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey passed the $1 billion mark in global takings.
