J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the duo behind Prime Video's upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, said the series will have more action than "any television or streaming show we've ever seen."
In an interview with Empire, Payne and McKay spoke about comparisons between action scenes in The Rings of Power and those in Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings film trilogy. "The siege at Helm's Deep is so iconic and amazing that it was like, 'What's a different thing that we can do that still feels like Middle-earth but is unique for this story?'" asked Payne.
McKay continued, "The show has a lot of action in it -- more so than any television or streaming show that we've seen. Every episode has set pieces, creatures, battles and white-knuckle fights to the death. But instead of having 10,000 Orcs fighting 10,000 men, what's it like to have one Orc in your face, in your kitchen? What's it like trying to kill an Orc when you've never killed an Orc before?"
McKay and Payne also spoke to the general pressure of following Jackson's films. "Anyone approaching Lord of the Rings on-screen would be wrong to not think about how wonderfully right [Jackson] got so much of it," said McKay. "But we're admirers from afar, that's it. The Rings of Power doesn't try to compete with him." With the first season alone costing $462 million, The Rings of Power could end up being the most expensive television show ever made. The showrunners repeatedly told Empire that it is "unlike anything we've seen before."
The Prime Video series will take fans familiar with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins thousands of years into Middle-earth's past, to the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology. During the Second Age, the elven races were much more involved in the happenings of Middle-earth. McKay and Payne drew from Tolkien's writings in The Silmarillion and "The Appendices" of The Return of the King to inspire their plot. The elven queen Galadriel, previously portrayed in the film trilogy by Cate Blanchett, will reportedly have an important role in the series. A younger version of Galadriel is being portrayed in The Rings of Power by Morfydd Clark.
Another character in the show that fans may already be familiar with is Celebrimbor, an elven prince who starred in the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War video games. According to Payne, Celebrimbor will be a key player in the plot of The Rings of Power. "We're dealing with one of the greatest villains that's ever been created in Sauron, and one of the central figures in the story is the character of Celebrimbor," Payne said. "We're excited to be bringing him to Middle-earth. He's very mysterious.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is coming to Prime Video on Sept. 2, 2022.
Source: Empire