Amazon's Lord Of The Rings Show To Film In New Zealand

Amazon's new Lord of the Rings TV show will film in New Zealand, just as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies did. This is according to The New Zealand Herald, which reports that a "huge" part of the show will be made in the country; Auckland and Queenstown were specifically called out as potential filming locations.

An Auckland films industry senior member told the publication that at least two different New Zealand film production companies, Kumeu Film Studios and Auckland Film Studios, are already doing pre-production work on the show. In fact, it's reported they've been working for more than a year already on the project in various endeavors such as building studio locations.

It was previously rumored that the Amazon Lord of the Rings TV show may film in Scotland. It's still possible the production will shoot in other locations outside of New Zealand. The NZ Herald reported that a "huge" part, but presumably not all, would be filmed in New Zealand.

An official announcement is presumably expected soon.

The new Lord of the Rings show is set in the Second Age, which is a 3,441-year period that covered major events like the forging of the Rings of Power, including the One Ring; the War of Sauron, the beginning of the Ringwraiths, and when Numenor the island sank into the ocean. Also, it was during the Second Age that the Elven city of Rivendell was developed and that the great battle where men, elves, and dwarves fought together for the first time against Sauron. A popular rumor was that the show would focus on a young Aragorn, but that may not happen.

JD Payne and Patrick McKay are writing Amazon's Lord of the Rings show. They have no TV writing credits to their name, but neither did David Benioff and D.B. Weiss when they made the massively popular Game of Thrones series. Amazon's Lord of the Rings show recently brought on Game of Thrones series producer Bryan Cogman, who was known as the "third head of the dragon" for Game of Thrones, along with Weiss and Benioff.

There is no word yet on when the Lord of the Rings show will premiere or who will star in it.

In other news, a new Lord of the Rings video game focused on Gollum is in development at Daedalic Entertainment, while a AAA online Lord of the Rings game is also on the way.