Surprising absolutely no one, Amazon has announced that its upcoming series based on the Middle Earth fantasy world of J R R Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings will be shot in New Zealand.
The country formerly played host to director Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of Tolkien’s masterpiece of fantasy literature, as well as Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s prequel story, The Hobbit. As of now, Jackson has no participation in the new series, which is set thousands of years before the events of Lord Of The Rings, during Middle Earth’s Second Age.
Series creators and showrunners J D Payne and Patrick McKay stated in a press release from Amazon –
As we searched for the location in which we could bring to life the primordial beauty of the Second Age of Middle-earth, we knew we needed to find somewhere majestic, with pristine coasts, forests, and mountains, that also is a home to world-class sets, studios, and highly skilled and experienced craftspeople and other staff. And we’re happy that we are now able to officially confirm New Zealand as our home for our series based on stories from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. We are grateful to the people and the government of New Zealand and especially Auckland for supporting us during this pre-production phase. The abundant measure of Kiwi hospitality with which they have welcomed us has already made us feel right at home, and we are looking forward to deepening our partnership in the years to come.
The still untitled show is in pre-production with shooting scheduled to start in Auckland in a few months. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director J A Bayona is set to direct the series’ first two episodes.
