Elijah Wood Had One Big Problem With The Rings of Power
Proposed to be the most expensive television series of all time, Amazon Prime Video's The Rings of Power wrapped up its first season a few weeks ago. The Lord of the Rings series caused a stir when it was in development, most notably coming from Elijah Wood, star of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
When the show was first announced, it was simply titled Lord of the Rings. Amazon's initial pitch to the Tolkien estate was a reboot of the original story, but this was rejected by the Tolkien estate. They ultimately convinced the estate to approve a show on their streaming series without a specific plot that was developed after offering $250 million. It was a massive payout before any production costs or any talent yet attached, but it reportedly wasn't even as expensive as Netflix 's bid.
The massive expenses turned some heads, but many were skeptical. Wood was among the skeptics, who particularly took issue with the name of the show.
Wood's career changed for the better after his lead role as Frodo, forever etched into Hollywood stardom. He himself is a fan of Tolkien's writing, well-versed in the lore. But he said he found it "bizarre" when the studio was simply referring to it as Lord of the Rings as a shorthand, considering it was going to be so different from the original story.
Even when it was revealed that the new show would be set in Middle-earth's Second Age (the original storyline takes place in the Third Age, thousands of years later), it was still referred to simply as Lord of the Rings. Wood said that was misleading for fans, considering the chronology is so far removed from the beloved characters of the film series and books.
"I find it bizarre that they're calling it Lord of the Rings as a shorthand, because it's not Lord Of The Rings!" Wood said (via Empire). "It takes place in the Second Age of Middle-earth. I am fascinated by what they're doing with the show. They're calling it The Lord of the Rings, but I think that's slightly misleading. From what I understand, the material they are working on exists chronologically further back in history in lore of Lord of the Rings or Middle Earth than any characters represented in Lord of the Rings."
While it was a fair argument by Wood, it makes sense why the studio would lean into the Lord of the Rings name while promoting the series. They didn't have any actors attached to the project at the time, so all they had was the LOTR branding. After decades of being one of the most popular stories ever – only revamped by the Jackson movies – anything with the name Lord of the Rings was immediately bankable. The studio already spent a quarter of a billion dollars on the series before anything was planned out, only to promise another billion in production costs. It is an expensive project of unprecedented proportions, so of course, the name would be used for marketing by Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos – who is apparently a huge LOTR fan and has been actively involved in purchasing discussions, uncommon for the studio.
Eventually, the name of the show was revealed to be Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, creating uniqueness while still banking on the popular franchise name.