Prime Video reveals title of Lord of the Rings series
January 19, 2022
By Nik Roseveare
Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings TV series officially has a name: The Rings of Power.
The significance behind the subtitle will not be lost on J.R.R. Tolkien fans, foreshadowing an epic story that welds the major events of Tolkien’s Second Age together: the forging of the iconic rings.
The multi-season drama – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries around the world in multiple languages on September 2nd with new episodes available weekly. The debut season is reported to be the most expensive season of television ever produced, with a budget of $465 million.
“This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics. The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men,” said Showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. “Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring – but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”
Prime Video chose to physically forge the title in a blacksmith foundry, pouring fiery molten metal into hand-carved wooden ravines shaped to the letterforms. The process was captured in slow motion for a live-action video, which features voice-over narration of lines from Tolkien’s famous Ring Verse describing the intended recipients of the 20 Rings of Power. The bespoke title treatment appears crafted in a silvery metal, with lines of Elvish script inscribed along the crest of each letterform.
The new series is set in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.