Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Show to Release Weekly Episodes Like ‘The Boys’
The Lord of the Rings series from Amazon Prime may still be pretty far into the future, but fans are getting more and more excited about the upcoming show as they learn more information about it.
Though the series is unnamed, it’s set to premiere in September 2022. The show has secured a staggering budget that’s more than that of many blockbuster films and is filming in many of the same iconic locations in New Zealand that the beloved film series used to bring Tolkien’s world to life. Amazon has even announced that they’ll air new episodes on a weekly basis as the show releases, which may end up being a little controversial with some fans
Everything we know about the series so far
Amazon’s new series will be set thousands of years before the events that were adapted from Tolkien’s fiction in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. The story of this new show will come from the second age described in Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, a history of the world his stories take place in. Though filming has been ongoing for months according to IGN, the show has been very scarce about releasing details.
In a recent press release, Amazon confirmed that the show will be released on September 2nd, 2022. They also released the first glimpse at an image from the show that has many fans guessing about what and who it may be a picture of. At this point, many members of the cast have been confirmed, but there are many question marks that remain about the show.
‘The Lord of the Rings’ series will release episodes weekly
Amazon also confirmed that the new series will release episodes weekly rather than all at once. This weekly release schedule has been used before by other showrunners in the past in an attempt to get audiences to appreciate and digest content better without the need to binge episodes to avoid spoilers.
It’s unclear how many episodes Amazon will be releasing each week, or even if it will always be the same number. The show’s producers are being clear about their intention to release weekly well in advance it seems because a weekly release schedule has created trouble for shows in the past.
The controversy surrounding weekly releases
When season 2 of The Boys was released on Amazon in 2020, fans were incredibly disappointed to see episodes 1-3 dropped right away while they were made to wait for the remainder of the season. Amazon had actually announced that they would air weekly when season 2 was initially announced, but showrunner Eric Kripke still thinks that there was a lack of communication that led to fans being upset.
I get that people are disappointed and, frankly, looking back, we thought that we were communicating that we were weekly,” Kripke told TheWrap shortly after the season aired. “Clearly, in hindsight, we had to do a lot more than we did to make sure that people weren’t surprised and disappointed.”
The Boys suffered a lot of fan backlash from the release schedule, ending with the show having a 98% “Fresh” rating from critics in its first week on Rotten Tomatoes, while only scoring a 2.7/5 on Prime’s customer ratings. It’s no wonder that Amazon wants to make sure that everyone is clear about the release schedule to avoid a repeat.
Many were quick to point to Amazon wanting to build hype as a reason that The Boys was released weekly, but the fact is that maybe some shows are designed to be enjoyed slowly. Kripke also said in his interview with TheWrap, “this is not like a corporate, Amazon money grab — this was from the producers. We wanted this. It was a creative choice.”
If Peter Jackson and Amazon’s new series is going to be as breathtaking as Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, it makes sense that they may want to slow down its release a little. Fans have waited a long time to see this show. Once it arrives, they’ll probably manage a week between episodes as well.
