A petition is demanding Amazon Prime Video not put any nudity in its upcoming Lord of the Rings television series -- and it's getting some support.
Posted to Change.org, the petition points to the news that producers of LOTR hired intimacy coaches and have asked that actors be comfortable with nude scenes in casting calls. It also notes that J.R.R. Tolkien's work is "truly wholesome" and "packed with incredible Christian symbolism," and that showing nudity in the series would be a betrayal of his deeply-held Catholic beliefs. At the time of this writing, the petition has nearly 36,000 signatures.
Recently, much has been made of Amazon's truly staggering $465 Million budget for LOTR. "This is a full season of a huge world-building show," Amazon Studios' Jennifer Salke said. "The number is a sexy headline or a crazy headline that’s fun to click on, but that is really building the infrastructure of what will sustain the whole series. But it is a crazy world and various people...have been in bidding situations where it starts to go incredibly high. There’s a lot of wooing and we have to make decisions on where we want to stretch and where we want to draw the line. As for how many people need to watch Lord of the Rings? A lot. (Laughs.) A giant, global audience needs to show up to it as appointment television, and we are pretty confident that that will happen."
The full text of the petition is below:
Amazon Prime has an upcoming Lord of the Rings series set before the trilogy. They have hired “intimacy coaches” and have asked that actors be comfortable with doing nude scenes in the castings. Tolkien’s work is truly wholesome and packed with incredible Christian symbolism. He was a devout Catholic, and his memory does not need to be stained with gratuitous nudity or even nudity in the slightest. Tolkien’s creations have always been mostly FAMILY friendly...KEEP IT THAT WAY.
Produced by Amazon Studios, The Lord of the Rings stars Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Daniel Weyman, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Maxim Baldry, Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crum, Maxine Cunliffe, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Thusitha Jayasundera, Fabian McCallum, Simon Merrells, Geoff Morrell, Peter Mullan, Lloyd Owen, Augustus Prew, Peter Tait, Alex Tarrant, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker and Sara Zwangobani. The series is expected to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in 2021.
Source: Change.org