LOTR prequel TV series 2.0

[RhaenysBee]

40 minutes ago, Ran said:

The "direct link", given that Elves live thousands of years, are probably going to be Celebrimbor (glimpsed forging the rings in LotR), Gil-Galad (glimpsed in the prologue of the Fellowship), Elrond (needs no explanation), maybe Galadriel.  And Sauron, of course. Pretty obvious that a Second Age story will be about the forging of the rings and so on, I think.

I understand that, it’s just all within the territory of the saga I don’t care about, as I never was a Tolkien fan, but a lotr movies fan. I’m sure this might be interesting for people who are invested in Tolkien’s work,  I can only speak for myself and a couple friends I discussed this with when saying that the Amazon show lost me. 

40 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I think you are seriously underestimating the Tolkien fanbase. It’s a fantastic investment because the number of Tolkien fans is so huge. And we are now all but confirmed to be talking about the rights to stuff that have always been off limits before.* Someone was bound to snag them, and it makes sense to stricken while the iron isn’t hot

On top of that you will have at least a decent proportion of the film fans who will see LOTR in the marketing’s and check it out. Then you have the GOT crowd who are going to be sold on this as the new GOT. There are a lot of factors working in this show’s favour to make it a winner as far Amazon is concerned.

 

also you’re first paragraph kind of speaks volumes as to why you can’t see this as a smart buy for Amazon.

 

*Christmas could be distinctly uncomfortable in the Tolkien family this year....

I honestly have no estimation about the Tolkien fan base and yes, of course my own opinion about the topic is the base of my curiosity about how smart a buy it was for amazon. I mean I didn’t say it’s not going to sell, I said I’m curious to see if it is because it seems so unimaginable to me. 

And my skepticism comes from exactly what you say (beside my bright character, of course). They will target Tolkien fans and the GoT crowd and to me that seems like two rather different factions that will be terribly difficult to please simultaneously, so they’ll end up falling between the two stools. 

They might totally pull it off, and good luck to them, and good for the audience, but I personally still feel like this is a letdown for me in terms of topic. 

[DMC]

4 hours ago, red snow said:

Maybe it's a "rental" of rights eg they have the whole lot for a limited time. If they fuck it up the rights revert back - if it's successful they can extend the deal (for less money)?

This is what I was gonna say - couldn't it be some type of licensing agreement?  Because I don't think you can do Numenor without the  Akallabeth.  I mean, you could, but that'd be really lame.

[Rhom]

I know that Christopher jealously guarded the rights for years and my understanding was that JRR had some sort of stipulation that Disney couldn't do his books.  And considering the state of animation and filmmaking in general in JRR's day... I get it.

But what has been the specific aversion to giving up Silmarillion and other more "obscure" works? 

(By obscure, I mean that the general population has never heard of them.)

[Ran]

In CT's own words:

Quote

Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time... The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. 

If he thought the LotR films trivialized his father's work, aesthetics, and philosophy, The Silmarillion is even more aesthetically, philosophically, and artistically centered than LotR.

The Second Age seems like a decent compromise, tying together the First and Third Ages without being an area heavily explored by Tolkien.

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I know that Christopher jealously guarded the rights for years and my understanding was that JRR had some sort of stipulation that Disney couldn't do his books.  And considering the state of animation and filmmaking in general in JRR's day... I get it.

But what has been the specific aversion to giving up Silmarillion and other more "obscure" works? 

(By obscure, I mean that the general population has never heard of them.)

Tolkien Senior sold the rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1968 for a decent sum (J.R.R. Tolkien was surprisingly pragmatic about such things). He couldn't sell The Silmarillion, since it wasn't finished yet.

Christopher took a different view. He hated the Jackson movies, and refused to sell any further rights once he took over. It's also worth remembering that Christopher had a personal, ring-side seat to his father's work (I think he once suggested that, for him, the history of Nargothrond was more real than the history of Babylon - there's a case that Christopher tried to preserve this innocence).

[The Marquis de Leech]

On the mechanics of adapting The Silmarillion, someone actually sat down and sketched the framework of a television series several years ago:

https://silmarillionseries.com/

I myself suggested a five part movie series in what is now a hilariously pessimistic post from 2017:

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/how-to-adapt-the-silmarillion/

I think it's do-able. I'm seeing this Second Age thing as a test-run for the First Age a few years from now. 

[DMC]

I think Christopher's objections are very well established, for a very long time.  If they were observed, Amazon wouldn't have been able to spend $200 million+ on the TV rights in the first place.  So I'm not sure why they're relevant at this point.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Tolkien Senior sold the rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1968 for a decent sum (J.R.R. Tolkien was surprisingly pragmatic about such things). He couldn't sell The Silmarillion, since it wasn't finished yet.

Christopher took a different view. He hated the Jackson movies, and refused to sell any further rights once he took over. It's also worth remembering that Christopher had a personal, ring-side seat to his father's work (I think he once suggested that, for him, the history of Nargothrond was more real than the history of Babylon - there's a case that Christopher tried to preserve this innocence).

Christopher Tolkien is 94 years old and stepped down as director of the Tolkien Estate two years ago. I don't know if it's ever been reported who's in charge now, but it is known that not everyone in the family had the same views as Christopher (to the point that he disowned one of his sons over the Jackson movies, though they reconciled after a few years). In which case, I think there's potentially no limit on what Amazon may have the rights to right now.

[red snow]

5 hours ago, DMC said:

This is what I was gonna say - couldn't it be some type of licensing agreement?  Because I don't think you can do Numenor without the  Akallabeth.  I mean, you could, but that'd be really lame.

If i was negotiating for Amazon i'd point out the adaptation would be more faithfull if the writers didn't have to invent/write around gaps. That kind if thing probably helps them sleep on their bed of millions at night. They could also assure them they'd only use these elements in telling the story they mean to tell as opposed to focusing on the book the places/races storybeats originate.

But i think the incredibly generous licensing agreement seems the best option. It's almost a no risk strategy for the Tolkien estate as they get the rights back if Amazon fouls things up. Plus sales of the untold tales etc will skyrocket if show is decent

[felice]

6 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I understand that, it’s just all within the territory of the saga I don’t care about, as I never was a Tolkien fan, but a lotr movies fan.

How did you become a LotR movies fan? Did you just go to see them because the trailers looked good? This series is likely to be at least vaguely similar in style, so why not give it a go and find out if the new characters grab you in the same way as Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas, etc did back when you'd never heard of them before?

[RhaenysBee]

15 minutes ago, felice said:

How did you become a LotR movies fan? Did you just go to see them because the trailers looked good? This series is likely to be at least vaguely similar in style, so why not give it a go and find out if the new characters grab you in the same way as Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas, etc did back when you'd never heard of them before?

Very retro story. My dad rented out the first two movies on VHS (or was it dvd already? I don’t think so) from a video rental shop some time around when trailers for the third movie showed up on tv and I watched them with him. And then we went to see the movie a few months later because I realized it was the bestest movie in the history of movies. 

If the reviews and the publicity deem it strong and I’ll have nothing else to watch, I might check out one episode. 

[Werthead]

Quote

 

This is what I was gonna say - couldn't it be some type of licensing agreement?  Because I don't think you can do Numenor without the  Akallabeth.  I mean, you could, but that'd be really lame.

 

The Middle-earth movie/TV rights/licensing history is complex, and I think we've discussed this before in a prior thread. But in short, J.R.R. Tolkien rejected several terrible movie offers in the 1960s. His agent convinced him that it was essentially impossible to make an artistic, respectful film for the "kudos" and that they should settle for a fuckload of "cash" instead, so Tolkien sold the screen rights for both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1969. After they failed to get a movie with John Boorman off the ground, they sold the rights to Saul Zaentz's company in 1976, which he renamed Tolkien Enterprises. However, United Artists only sold the rights to The Lord of the Rings, retaining the rights to The Hobbit via their parent company, MGM (on the grounds that the clueless executives thought that The Lord of the Rings was The Hobbit 2 and no-one would make the sequel without making The Hobbit first).

This is why two different companies - Rankin Bass/NBC and Fantasy Films (Ralph Bakshi's company, sub-licensing the rights from Tolkien Enterprises) - ended up with the animated film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and produced two different movies with different visual styles in 1977 and 1978, although there was a distribution link, as Bakshi's LotR movie was released by United Artists, because Hollywood is weirdly incestuous.

In 1995, when Peter Jackson wanted to make a trilogy with The Hobbit as one movie and LotR as two films, MGM told him to fuck off, so he proceeded with LotR alone and we know how that turned out. New Line produced the movies with a licensing deal from Tolkien Enterprises that appears to have been in perpetuity as long as various clauses are met (i.e. profits from LotR movie media sales, streams and licensed products are shared with Tolkien Enterprises). MGM wanted in on The Hobbit and it was their various messing around and creative interference which resulted in it taking ten years to make the Hobbit trilogy and it being a total clusterfuck when they did, although Warner Brothers buying New Line in the middle of it all and sticking their 2c in didn't help matters.

Through all of this, the only rights in contention were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as the deal preceded Tolkien's death in 1973 and the publication of The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980) and The History of Middle-earth series (1983-96). These books were copyrighted to the Tolkien Estate in the name of the literary executors Christopher Tolkien and Frank Richard Williamson. This is crucial as these books are all legally recognised as works by J.R.R. Tolkien with Christopher serving in an editorial role, and the copyright and rights to the books are owned by the Tolkien Estate. Williamson, J.R.R. Tolkien's lawyer, died some years ago and various lawyers have handled that side of things since.

This new deal with Amazon seems to have taken two parts: a licensing arrangement with New Line/Warner Brothers for the Lord of the Rings screen rights which grants them the rights to adapt LotR, its appendices or develop new stories based on that material, and a new deal with the Tolkien Estate. This latter deal included previously the rights to "unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings" which should have told us really that Tolkien writings would be included in this deal. The licensing deal with all parties was worth $250 million, with a reported guaranteed $100-150 million-per-season budget.

However, this deal is specifically time-limited. If production has not begun by November 2019, the rights revert to the prior respective rights-holders. 

Through all of this, the general feeling seems to have been that no-one wants to even think of working with MGM again, so the Hobbit rights are off the table and not included in this deal, at all. New Line/Warners may be able to use material they created exclusively for the films (i.e. Tauriel could show up) but that's unclear and probably a legal grey area they want to steer clear of.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

/snip

This is, like, an excellent rehash that could be a great wikipedia entry on the public record.  But it does not address my question - do you think Amazon acquired the rights to the Akallabeth (however temporarily) or not?  I'm not trying to be a dick by pressing the issue, I'm honestly interested in your opinion on the matter.

[Ran]

I would guess, personally, that Christopher Tolkien's direct hand in the creation of The Silmarillion would mean that the Estate would, at least presently, respect his wishes on not licensing that text. Just a guess, though. Given that Amazon started the map tweets by quoting the ring poem, it does seem like this show is about Celebrimbor and the forging of the rings, which is more than a thousand years before the downfall of Númenor.

Also, I decided to refresh my memory looking at the previous thread, and one thing I just realized is that TheOneRing.net was wildly wrong. They're the ones who pushed the "young Aragorn" narrative, claiming "multiple sources" confirmed it to them. Unless we want to believe Amazon was starting that way and then pivoted, it seems quite likely that TORN's sources -- whoever they are -- seriously oversold their knowledge of Amazon's plans.

[red snow]

11 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Very retro story. My dad rented out the first two movies on VHS (or was it dvd already? I don’t think so) from a video rental shop some time around when trailers for the third movie showed up on tv and I watched them with him. And then we went to see the movie a few months later because I realized it was the bestest movie in the history of movies. 

If the reviews and the publicity deem it strong and I’ll have nothing else to watch, I might check out one episode. 

Your buckling! Next you'll be telling us you are willing to watch a pirated version or illegal stream

it'll be curious to see what lengths Amazon will take to try and stop pirating. HBO took a pretty chilled approach with GOT until someone started leaking episides before they aired. This will easily be Amazon's tentpole show in terms of generating interest. While I'm sure they'll want the new prime subscribers I do wonder whether they'll also see it as a massive merchandise fountain - something that comes in very handy when you sell everything. I expect there to be merchandise links at the end of every episode. I'd probably go one further and when people pause for the "x-ray" function i'd stick some merch ads related to what's in the paused screen.

They just better not put this, WOT and the other SFF shows they are developing into a premium channel requiring cash on top of their prime subscription!  I think it would be madness for them to do that with LOTR (possible with WOT + other new shows/films) although i bet we'll see them try it in one territory at least - hopefully not the UK.

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

Your buckling! Next you'll be telling us you are willing to watch a pirated version or illegal stream

it'll be curious to see what lengths Amazon will take to try and stop pirating. HBO took a pretty chilled approach with GOT until someone started leaking episides before they aired. This will easily be Amazon's tentpole show in terms of generating interest. While I'm sure they'll want the new prime subscribers I do wonder whether they'll also see it as a massive merchandise fountain - something that comes in very handy when you sell everything. I expect there to be merchandise links at the end of every episode. I'd probably go one further and when people pause for the "x-ray" function i'd stick some merch ads related to what's in the paused screen.

They just better not put this, WOT and the other SFF shows they are developing into a premium channel requiring cash on top of their prime subscription!  I think it would be madness for them to do that with LOTR (possible with WOT + other new shows/films) although i bet we'll see them try it in one territory at least - hopefully not the UK.

Oh don’t remind me what a nightmare that was for the first few seasons of GoT. It took 5 hours to find a functioning link and watch one episode.... The same helpless struggle every Monday morning because a service wasn’t available in my area no matter how desperate I was to pay for it.  Thank goodness HBO GO and Netflix finally arrived and graced us with their magic so I could stop scavengering after episodes and just have the luxury of being able to pay for the legal version. 

Not sure if amazon prime is available here so we can watch this Not-Lotr thing, I won’t be too upset if it isn’t, actually. I personally wouldn’t mind the merch ads, I’m a sucker for merch, even for looking at merch. And I certainly wouldn’t pay for a prime subscription and extra to see this one show (or any other, really). 

[red snow]

29 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

Oh don’t remind me what a nightmare that was for the first few seasons of GoT. It took 5 hours to find a functioning link and watch one episode.... The same helpless struggle every Monday morning because a service wasn’t available in my area no matter how desperate I was to pay for it.  Thank goodness HBO GO and Netflix finally arrived and graced us with their magic so I could stop scavengering after episodes and just have the luxury of being able to pay for the legal version. 

Not sure if amazon prime is available here so we can watch this Not-Lotr thing, I won’t be too upset if it isn’t, actually. I personally wouldn’t mind the merch ads, I’m a sucker for merch, even for looking at merch. And I certainly wouldn’t pay for a prime subscription and extra to see this one show (or any other, really). 

I think Netflix has definitely shown how with enough content and a reasonable price people prefer the ease of watching legally. I think the other lesson from GOT (and netlfix) is to have same day release internationally of episodes. In the UK they now have GOT (and other shows) available early morning after US premiers. I know when I was younger the biggest motivator in getting hold of episodes was that I didn't have to wait weeks/months for them to be available in UK.

I think tailored ads related to the show is absolutely fine as long as they aren't interrupting the flow of an episode. Like you - I'm a sucker for merchandise and would probably be tempted by an amazon ad saying "sale now on funko pop 2nd age figures" or "kindle version of untold tales only £1" etc. I'll be amazed if amazon have not had this type of stuff in mind all along. Their issue has been getting a major hit on their hands that allows for merchandise to be sold. They can hardly sell "man in the high castle" merch without it looking like Nazi memorabilia. It'll be interesting to see what they do with "the expanse" now that they own it.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

I think tailored ads related to the show is absolutely fine as long as they aren't interrupting the flow of an episode. Like you - I'm a sucker for merchandise and would probably be tempted by an amazon ad saying "sale now on funko pop 2nd age figures" or "kindle version of untold tales only £1" etc. I'll be amazed if amazon have not had this type of stuff in mind all along.

I've seen speculation that Tolkien Estates made the deal with Amazon rather than anyone else because it will also drive sales of the books on Amazon.

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

I think Netflix has definitely shown how with enough content and a reasonable price people prefer the ease of watching legally. I think the other lesson from GOT (and netlfix) is to have same day release internationally of episodes. In the UK they now have GOT (and other shows) available early morning after US premiers. I know when I was younger the biggest motivator in getting hold of episodes was that I didn't have to wait weeks/months for them to be available in UK.

I think tailored ads related to the show is absolutely fine as long as they aren't interrupting the flow of an episode. Like you - I'm a sucker for merchandise and would probably be tempted by an amazon ad saying "sale now on funko pop 2nd age figures" or "kindle version of untold tales only £1" etc. I'll be amazed if amazon have not had this type of stuff in mind all along. Their issue has been getting a major hit on their hands that allows for merchandise to be sold. They can hardly sell "man in the high castle" merch without it looking like Nazi memorabilia. It'll be interesting to see what they do with "the expanse" now that they own it.

And then imagine sitting in Eastern Europe waiting for shows to come out weeks and months, or even years after they air in the US. I suppose that didn’t bother us in the olden days when there was no internet and we didn’t know what we were missing out on. 

If they are smart they’ll surely do this. Of course, amazon would want to boost their sales too, I didn’t even think of that.  And if they do, this not-lotr project will likely bring all the money they expect from it. 

[DMC]

45 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I've seen speculation that Tolkien Estates made the deal with Amazon rather than anyone else because it will also drive sales of the books on Amazon.

Wouldn't this be based on a premise that they are worried about people finding a place to buy their books?  I don't think that's a realistic concern, nor do I think being on Amazon will drive viewership more than any other producer.