copyright'The Lord of the Rings': The first season could have 20 episodes
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The Amazon Prime Video series will feature Juan Antonio Bayona as director of the first two chapters.
One of the most ambitious series of Amazon Prime Video, such as The Lord of the Rings, is currently in full pre-production and little by little details of what one of the most anticipated fictions of the next years.
The latter comes from a recent Deutsche Tolkien interview with Tom Shippey, former professor of Old English literature and Tolkien world expert who is helping to adapt the books. Shippey has revealed that the first season of The Lord of the Rings would consist of 20 episodes by asking him if he knew of any location to be used for filming:
"The exact locations are still unknown and could well be several. Filming itself does not take place chronologically, but is oriented towards locations. Logically, you try to group all the scenes that take place in one location and shoot them so that they are made and you don't have to go back to that place several times. But this also implies that everything has to be clear at the beginning of filming, you have to know the end. There are supposed to be 20 episodes for the first season. So, until they decide what the end will be, they can't start rolling"
As for the story created by Tolkien, Shippey wanted to make it clear that Amazon has to ensure that the limits created by the author of the saga are not exceeded since there will be questions whose answers will have to be invented
"What has Sauron done in the meantime? Where is it after Morgoth was defeated? Theoretically, Amazon can answer these questions by inventing the answers, since Tolkien did not. But it should not contradict anything Tolkien wrote. That is what Amazon has to watch. It must be canonical. It is impossible to change the limits that Tolkien has created, it is necessary to remain ‘Tolkienian"
What we know for sure is that Juan Antonio Bayona will direct the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings with JD Payne and Patrick McKay as showrunners of the same with a team of scriptwriters formed by Helen Shang (Hannibal), Jason Cahill (Fringe ), Justin Doble (Stranger Things), Glenise Mullins (Kingdom), Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones), Gennifer Hutchinson (Breaking Bad) and Stephany Folsom (Toy Story 4).