The First Season Of Amazon’s “The Lord Of The Rings” Series Is Going To Cost $465 Million
The Hollywood Reporter says that Amazon Studios’ upcoming Lord Of The Rings prequel series is going to be insanely expensive. Just how expensive can it be? $465 million for only one season. The upcoming Amazon series will be filming in New Zealand, and Jeff Bezos has spared no dollar it seems. They’ve been planning the series since 2017 and the budget for the first season is coming in at an astounding NZ$650 million, which in American dollars comes out to $465 million. These hos are putting on a show more elaborate than when Aragorn was coronated King of Gondor, okayyyyyyy? Don’t get that reference? Me either, actually.
Sure, that sounds like a huge amount of money to blow on a series about a bunch of elves and shit which already had like a bajillion movies which cost the same amount as an entire country’s gross domestic product. But you know who thinks it’s absolutely fabulous? One Stuart Nash, who is the New Zealand minister for economic development and tourism. He told New Zealand publication Morning Report:
“What I can tell you is Amazon is going to spend about $650 million in season one alone. This is fantastic, it really is … this will be the largest television series ever made.”
If this sounds like an insane amount of money, it really is. Game Of Thrones cost about $100 million per season, starting at about $6 million an episode in the first season and capping off at $15 million an episode by the tragic end of that mess. So if this shit is costing $465 million already, it’s like… Jeff Bezos won’t be rich for long. …GOOD! But hey, apparently it costs $250 million just to get the rights to J. R. R. Tolkien‘s series in the first place.
As part of the New Zealand government’s Official Information Act, the numbers of the production were released publicly. The documents also show that the studio plans to film potentially five seasons in New Zealand as well as a possible, yet-to-be-announced spin-off series. This shit is not even out yet and already they have a spin-off loaded and ready if necessary.
A bit of controversy around the series is the fact that the show qualifies for a tax rebate and so technically the country of New Zealand is paying for hundreds of millions of the budget. But hey, the hope is it may boost local spending and increase tourism.
Well, imagine if Amazon poached Regé-Jean Page from Netflix and put him in this shit. If he flashes his ass, Amazon will make back that half a billion dollars in no time!
Pic: YouTube