The Academy Award-winning director, Peter Jackson, recently disclosed some shocking details about Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. He revealed how the studio contacted him a few years ago to know his thoughts about the show and ghosted him.
Here’s what Jackson said in The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast: “They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, ‘That’s an impossible question to answer without seeing a script. So they said, ‘As soon as we get the first couple of scripts, we’ll send them to you.’ And the scripts never showed up. That’s the last thing I heard, which is fine. No complaints at all.”
The Rings of Power has been under the radar of diehard fans of Tolkien’s novels and the original film trilogy ever since Amazon acquired global television rights in 2017. Jeff Bezos’ love for the LOTR franchise lured him to spend a hefty amount of $250 million to seal the deal. The former CEO of Amazon might have had the last laugh after successfully acquiring the tv rights. But this scenario pissed off the majority of the franchise’s fans.
Fans believe that Amazon’s efforts to ‘GOT-ify’ the series are nothing but an insult to Tolkien’s works. A lot of them wanted the continuation of the events that took place in the original trilogy. Instead, they are getting some type of a bastardised spin-off wrapped in the names of Tolkien’s universe.
The hate towards the show augmented after Amazon fired Tom Shippey, a prominent LOTR scholar, out of nowhere. Several reports disclosed that the scholar was laid off from the project as he started thinking that the makers were polluting the lore. This scenario made the fans slander the studio even more. Now, Peter Jackson’s newly unearthed comments about his experience with Amazon may cause problems for The Rings of Power.
No doubt that things would have been different for the studio if Shippey and Jackson were a part of the show. They would have offered valuable advice to the makers and provided solutions to their filming dilemmas. Additionally, the duo would have aided the studio in keeping the true spirit of Tolkien’s novels intact in the show. Their inclusion might have calmed down a large portion of enraged fans.
However, things are way different now from what they could have been. The Rings of Power is nearing its release window, scheduled to premiere on Prime Video on September 2. And Peter Jackson’s comments about his disappointing “Amazon experience” may hurt the show’s viewership. Although, the helmer has no hard feelings toward the showrunners. Instead, he desires to watch the series as a fan of the franchise. Stay tuned for more updates.