The first episode of Amazon’s Middle-earth spin-off series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is released today. As would be expected, it’s already generated a tonne of buzz: Amazon bought the series’ rights for $250 million; Jeff Bezos wanted to make a new Game of Thrones (worrying many LOTR fans about the amount of sex and violence that might feature); Peter Jackson is nowhere to be seen; a Tolkien professor left the project, and there’s a rumour that the series is hardly based on Tolkien’s work at all.
With HBO’s House of the Dragon enjoying a record-breaking premiere last week, Amazon is under more pressure than ever to make today’s launch a success. So what’s actually going on here? And can Middle-earth make it in 2022?
