The return of the rings

This article is published in issue 10 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 7, 2022

If it works, it could become a global phenomenon. If it fails, it might sound like a warning to those who – to quote right away JRR Tolkien – «they dig too greedily and too deep». The first of the five seasons of the ambitious saga The Rings of Power will debut on Prime Video the 2 September and, better to clarify it from now, it is not based on a Tolkien novel, but on the immense material collected by him in the Appendices to the legendary trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Cost of the operation: probably over a billion dollars. A budget that would cut the legs of several studios, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is obsessed with the English writer and it doesn’t hurt that he is one of the richest men in the world. For him and the e-commerce giant, therefore, the series – the most expensive and complex ever made – actually represents more a reputational risk than a financial one: it is an opportunity to demonstrate that he knows how to produce important and prestigious titles. And also to be able to handle a work that many consider sacred.

Vanity Fair saw the first three episodes. Impressions: The Rings of Power took the right path; there are familiar characters who will catch your attention, but it will be the new faces that will involve you, because their destiny is not yet written. In any case, before any spoilers, let’s rewind the tape.

After the success ofHobbitthe children’s fairy tale of 1937, JRR Tolkien concentrated on a volume devoted to Middle Earth: he proposed it to his publishers, but they refused it. Era The Silmarillion, which will be published posthumously. So, as the Second World War raged around him, he focused on a new venture: the adventure of beings belonging to very different societies who put aside their differences to eradicate evil. This, of course, will be the epic The Lord of the Rings. Following the release of the first two volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring And The two Towers, in July and November 1954 – the post-war economic crisis made it impossible to find large quantities of paper and consequently publish a single large text – readers became obsessive. ‘Most people want more maps, and better done,’ Tolkien wrote to a friend in 1956. ‘Musicians want melodies and musical notations. Archaeologists ask me about ceramics, metallurgy, tools and architecture … Historians want more details on sociopolitical structures ». To give them all this, he told his publisher, “it would take a book at least the size of the first volume.” Instead, drawing from the material of the Silmarillion refused, Tolkien condensed thousands of years of history into about 150 pages of postscript, which became known as the Appendices. These timelines, genealogies, and annotations on language and culture acquired such importance for the author that he even delayed the publication of the last chapter of the trilogy. The Return of the King.

After death by JRR Tolkien, his son Christopher took over the rights of the works and went down in history due to the lack of availability (not to say intransigence) with respect to possible adaptations. “Christopher didn’t like it The Lord of the Rings, and he disdained the glorification of violence for its own sake, ”explains Michael Drout, a Tolkien scholar and professor at Wheaton College. «He was born in 1924, the great ones franchise full of spectacular special effects were not a thing that interested him. If his father had not sold all the rights of the Lord of the Rings And The Hobbit to pay inheritance taxes, I doubt the son would ever have done so. ‘

In the years, Christopher Tolkien he turned down numerous offers for the rest of the Middle Earth. Then, surprisingly, in 2017, they were put to theauction the rights of Appendices. The basis: $ 200 million. Among the bidders: HBO and Netflix, however it was the team of Amazon to win the game for 250 million dollars (just under 220 million euros). “Jeff Bezos he is a true connoisseur of Tolkien’s writings, ”says Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. So, adding both the production costs (over 400 million dollars for the first season) and those of the promotional campaign to the amount paid out for the rights, there is no doubt that it will exceed one billion dollars.

One can only imagine the pressure they are subjected to showrunner Patrick McKay and John D. Paynewhich they handled 22 characters and different narrative plots. If you try to search for them on Imdb, the search engine of the entertainment world, you will discover – with legitimate surprise – that The Rings of Power it is their first accredited work. They’ve actually been writing screenplays in Hollywood for 13 years. The first to be amazed were McKay and Payne themselves. “We were thrilled with the material and had a proposal that matched Amazon’s ambitions,” explains John. They also seem to have found an important supporter in director JJ Abrams, who knew them from working with him on Star Trek.