Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Release Date Comes With a Breathtaking First Look

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Release Date Comes With a Breathtaking First Look

Frodo’s journey to Mordor was a long and dire one and so too will the journey be to the next Lord of the Rings story. Filming on the first season of Amazon’s upcoming, ultra-expensive, new television adaptation finished in New Zealand Monday and, to celebrate, the company announced that the show will debut on September 2, 2022. So yes, that’s over a year from now.

The show will debut in more than 240 countries and territories all over the world and new episodes will be released weekly. Along with the announcement came a brand new image, which you can see in full below. We have no clue who the person is but the architecture has a distinct Rivendell vibe, meaning it was likely built by the elves. Maybe Valinor or, more specifically, Valinor’s city of Valmar — that’s likely the Trees of Valinor, Telperion and Laurelin, you see far in the distance.

What we do know for sure, is that the show will be set thousands of years before the events in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books–though the content of this image suggests we’ll see at least a bit earlier than that as well. The show takes place during the Second Age of Middle-earth which began rather peaceful, but turned out to be anything but, setting the stage for all the stories we’ve become familiar with thanks to Peter Jackson’s movies.

The full image.  (Photo: Amazon)
The full image. (Photo: Amazon)

“The journey begins September 2, 2022 with the premiere of our original The Lord of the Rings series on Prime Video,” Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios, said in a press release. “I can’t express enough just how excited we all are to take our global audience on a new and epic journey through Middle-earth! Our talented producers, cast, creative, and production teams have worked tirelessly in New Zealand to bring this untold and awe-inspiring vision to life.”

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are running the as-yet-untitled show and had this to say about the news. “As Bilbo says, ‘Now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.’ Living and breathing Middle-earth these many months has been the adventure of a lifetime. We cannot wait for fans to have the chance to do so as well.” The reality is, though, we have to wait. And it’s a long wait. But if the show is worthy of the huge investment Amazon has made in it, it’ll be very much worth it.

Don’t forget that separately, an anime film is in the works called The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. That one is being made by Warner Bros. Animation and New Line Cinema.


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