This is all way preliminary, but word has it that Warner Bros. is negotiating with the Tolkien Estate over an actual TV series (likely on Amazon) set in Middle Earth.
There are a lot of interesting ways this could go. A series that focused on the LotR could pull in a lot of details that got rushed through (even in the 3½ director cuts). Imagine 8-12 hours (a season) per book. We could get Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Mounds. We could get the loads of little details and dialog.
Or, alternately, we could see told tales from elsewhere in the Tolkien mythos — some Silmarillion, perhaps.
Or — and this seems the least likely, given the Tolkien Estate’s control over the material — anthology (by episode or season or multip-ep arcs) stories set in Middle Earth during the War of the Ring, or the Last Alliance, or other narratives. Stories of people who aren’t the Fellowship or Thorin’s band. Drama in Laketown. A heroic vignette during the siege of Minas Tirith. Refugees from Minas Ithil. What happened to those wizards sent off to Rhun? What’s life like in the White Havens, watching an endless stream of Elves sailing to the Uttermost West?
Lots of possibilities that long-form TV could allow. I’ll be curious to see what, if anything, comes from this.
‘Lord of the Rings’ TV Series in the Works
Amazon Studios has emerged as a potential buyer for the drama from Warner Bros. Television.
But, why?
+Laura Ess Well, there are plenty of tales to tell, even from just the LotR.
Woot! And here's hoping that Tom Bombadil will finally make an appearance.
Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel!
Just for gods’s sakes no more giant rabbits or dwarves falling down bridges through caves.
+Kee Hinckley yes!
The Hobbit really should have been a 10 part series.
Very nice