Amazon hires 'Star Trek 4' writers to create 'Lord of the Rings' TV series

[brooklynite]

New York Daily News:

Amazon Studios has found a pair of writers to develop a TV series for “The Lord of the Rings.”
After an extensive search, “Star Trek 4” writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay were hired to work on the big-budget series, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Jennifer Salke made the announcement Saturday during her debut as head of Amazon Studios at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour. She wouldn’t say if Payne and McKay would work as writers or showrunners, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“The rich world that J.R.R. Tolkien created is filled with majesty and heart, wisdom and complexity,” Payne and McKay said in a statement. “We are absolutely thrilled to be partnering with Amazon to bring it to life anew. We feel like Frodo, setting out from the Shire, with a great responsibility in our care – it is the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime.”

[exboyfil]

1. I think this whole project is a horrible idea

While the Tolkien family might have loved the $250M they got from Amazon, I think it was a horrible decision. The field has been plowed in the six movies (Jackson actually had to add a bunch of poorly conceived stuff to the Hobbit Trilogy to fill out that bloated mess). Basically Amazon received some disconnected short stories and Appendices from the Tolkien estate. That $250M could have been used to create an original sword and sorcery epic. They have already started in the hole for no good reason. If they needed existing IP, why not look at Elric or Chronicles of Amber for example.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Chronicles of Amber would be way cool.

I could think of a couple of cool additions: a cop car chasing Random & Corwin across a couple of Shadow Earths and the coppers finding out that they are WAY out of their jurisdiction.

[Adrahil]

3. Ummm.. sorry, but I thought ugh Amber sucked...

Even comparing that dreck to Tolkien is crazy!

I'm excited for the series. There were 60 years between Hobbit and LOTR. Plenty of room for some good stories.

[exboyfil]

7. It is a matter of opinion

I am definitely not comparing LOTR to Amber. I just think all the best parts of Tolkien may have already been explored. Maybe I will be proven wrong, but what you ultimately get will bare little resemblance to Tolkien. I do hope for the best, but $250M is a big hole to start in.

Lots of people have enjoyed Amber for almost fifty years. I think it stands on its own. I do know it was somewhat derivative of World of Tiers which I read first (I am a huge Farmer fan). Even being a Farmer fan, Amber is a superior work. Granted I have not read much modern fantasy, but I would put Amber up against Shannara, Thomas Covenant the Whiner, and the Robert Jordan books.

[Adrahil]

20. Of course!

Sorry if I came off like a jerk. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and maybe had a little too much at the Green Dragon tonight!

[exboyfil]

26. OK

It is good to be passionate, and fantasy is something we can enjoy to avoid thinking about the Mordor that has come to DC. I like horror movies, but I told my daughter only ones fighting a non-human monster. Enough of people hurting other people. Too much like today.

[mr_lebowski]

15. Pretty sure it was more like 30 ... 1930's vs. 1960's ... do correct me if I'm wrong tho :) nt

[MurrayDelph]

18. Loved the first Amber series

The second five not so much. It started out by throwing out much of what the rules had been defined to be. Then set up a quest that was never finished.

The Betancourt prequels did so badly they never finished.

[exboyfil]

23. The first series

That is what I had in mind. The remaining books are a cash out on the IP. A not uncommon occurence for a long running series.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. You mean something like this?

[Xolodno]

4. I hear you...

...but

Lord of the Rings has name recognition. There have been attempts to adapt the "fantasy" genre in the past both in TV and movies, and most have failed. Ask George Lucas how "Willow" did. Only a handful of of IP's have made it well, excluding Tolkien...Game of Thrones, Xena, Conan the Barbarian, Harry Potter...and that's all I can think of. C. S. Lewis novels didn't make it too far.

Then you have the failures...Eragon, Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy spin offs, Van Helsing, The Golden Compass, etc. which outnumber the hits by a wide margin.

And as much as like Tolkien, from having leather bound copies of his books to playing LOTRO... I'm probably going to watch it. For me it will be like reading a lot of the Star Wars books/comics before Disney acquired it....other authors opinion and imagination on the universe.

In my view, the puritan standard is almost cultic, fan fiction, however, is a complement.

[Lochloosa]

5. I would like someone to take a shot at the Dragonriders of Pern series.

Start with The White Dragon and Ruth.

[tblue37]

6. That one, and Bradley's Darkover series. nt

[Hekate]

13. I would love to see Ursula leGuin's Always Coming Home or Earthsea adapted well...

I've seen a few results that were crashingly wrong, tho -- the animation by Miyazaki junior should have been grounds for a lawsuit, starting as it did with a parricide.

[Xolodno]

25. Or look at...

...the works by Terry Brooks.

[Persondem]

32. Netflix produced 2 seasons of the Shannara Chronicles

It has some good moments but is rather uneven and can't decide on its tone. Here's a link if yo want to check it out, but be ready ...

https://www.netflix.com/title/80084164

[miyazaki]

11. Quarter billion just to get out of the gate?

Rofl. I wonder how much that New Line Cinema(?) had to pay the family, or are they still in court or something.

Jackson's versions of the books were either overdone or underdone and too light fare for my taste. The stories as I read them were much more dark and grim in my mind, but you know family values and return revenue etc.

Can't they just re-boot Sanford & Son? Ha.

[mr_lebowski]

16. A mashup of Good Times, Sanford & Son, and the Jeffersons I think would really kill it with today's

audiences. Like a license to print money ...

[Blue_true]

8. I liked the movies, don't see a tv series working.

The tale is too slow and too violent for tv. Why don't Hollywood people scour the world of new literature for movie script ideas, developing stuff from novels would be a far more effective way to develop a tv series, IMO.

[Ilsa]

9. I've been meaning to read The Silmarillion.

Would it make a good series?

[Xolodno]

27. I'd call it a good plot outline...

...details are missing however.

Some of the lost tales, such as Hurin's children is good reading. But like that story, when Tolkien gets into detail of the stories, much of it can be heart breaking...which many in Hollywood are adverse to doing.

When I worked for Disneyland while going to college, took the opportunity to go on a tour of the studios in Burbank, we were told at that time, the movie in development, Pocahontas would be a sad story as the heroine dies. That obviously got changed later... they probably should have stuck to that idea too.

[Kaleva]

10. Maybe Sauron wins in this reboot.

[Hekate]

14. Is he orange? Or is he a dapper little man who rides the steppes bare-chested?

[LisaM]

12. The Peter Jackson movies got it so, so wrong.

How he read through those books and envisioned an action movie is beyond me.

I have heard that anyone who was at Oxford in the 1930s recognized every personality in the books. I would like any new adaptation to explore that aspect, along with the long periods where the quest was just ordinary creatures trudging towards an uncertain end. I have absolutely zero hope that it will be remotely like that.

[mr_lebowski]

17. I liked 'em okay 'cept for the lame, bolted-on romance stuff ... but I guess they needed more than

pasty, nerdy, male Tolkien dweebs (and I say that with the utmost respect) ... to show up at the cinema in order to recoup expenses.

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Totally agree on the movies.

I've always felt that the pacing of the story would work out better with a multi-season TV series. The three movie format wasn't enough to do the story justice, while it was overkill for The Hobbit.

I too would like to see the story explored in much more depth, rather than the focus on splashy action adventure.

Doesn't sound like they're actually even going to be doing the LOTR story, though. Just some sort of prequel. Pity. I'd love to see it done "properly".

[Xolodno]

28. Hence why the book is always better...

...its seldom when the book translates into a good movie. So, the story in the book gets adapted, slashed, transformed, etc. for the audience that doesn't have the patience for a good story to develop. I know someone who watches movies religiously....but hasn't even made it past the first Lord of the Rings movies...says its too long without any action. A relative of mine says something similar, the first movie is all about walking.

Vast majority just don't appreciate long stories. For example War and Peace, great book. No way in hell you could make that into a good movie, cinema is littered with failures that have attempted.

[Adrahil]

31. I disagree, with some exceptions.

The movies handled the hobbits well, IMO. That was my main concern, and they worked out well for me.

Aragorn was good, if more conflicted than in the books.

Boromir was BETTER than in the books.

My only real complaints?

1) Super Ninja Legolas. Make him cool without shield surfing, please.
2) Faramir would not have sent the ring to Minas Tirith. I know why they did that, and it worked out well, but yeah... no. I loved Davis Wenham in the part though.


I can honestly say I was almost 100% on board with the rest. If I had been the director, I might have done it a bit differently, but over all? I loved it.

And I'm one of those guys that re-reads the books every year.

[LisaM]

35. No Bombadil, no Glorfindel...

And worst of all, no scouring of the Shire. They took out the "homely" stuff that I loved. And yeah, I read them once or twice a year. I did enjoy the accents they gave the Hobbits.

[Aristus]

21. Why not a TV series about the Elric saga?

There's a fantasy literature property that no one has ever taken a crack at...

[exboyfil]

24. YES

His relationship with Stormbringer is awesome. I told my daughter about it. She is continually scripting New books, and she was mad because she had come up with the idea as well. I would like to see Corum done as well. Why no one has put money in Moorcock's pocket is beyond me.

[TlalocW]

22. Do the Silmarillion

Confuse the hell out of everyone.

TlalocW

[Simeon Salus]

30. Glen Cook's "The Black Company"

is suitably dry and audacious to stun a TV audience over and over. And many of America's veterans seem to have adopted it.

Recycling LOTC seems like such small beer...

That's for posting this, brooklynite.

[Persondem]

33. This could work if well thougth out. IIRC Beren and Lutrhien has the green light ...

Perhaps the lead up to the Last Alliance of Men and Elves when they battled Sauron and took the ring from him.

Or the Fall or Arnor in the earlier in the Third Age.

Or the Akallabeth, and the time before the cataclysm at the end of the Second(?) Age.

Or the adventures of the two blue wizards (there were 5 Istari) who disappeared from the main part of Middle Earth.

Just some ideas.

[gulliver]

34. The Lord of the Rings still hasn't been done in movie form (and can't be).

If you haven't read the books, you've just completely missed The Lord of the Rings. It's a tale told by a storyteller. It's movie form is thin gruel. It bums me out that these folks can say things like they are "bringing it to life anew" (about Tolkien's world). They're just doing an inferior cover of it. There's no shortcut. It has to be read. And no, not listened to as an audio book.