We’ve already mentioned Amazon’s multi-season commitment for a Lord Of The Rings series, which set them back $250 million just for the rights. Now more word is coming, and Amazon is spending “holy f*** how much?!” money on it.
The Hollywood Reporter has a long, in-depth article on how the deal came together and what it involves. Among those details: a five-season commitment for the series, a $1 billlion price tag and, oh yeah, if Amazon doesn’t get moving chop-chop, the Tolkien estate gets to take that quarter of a billion dollars and walk:
With the clock ticking, Amazon must be in production within two years, according to the terms of the pact. When production expenses like casting, producers and visual effects are factored in, the series is expected to cost north of $1 billion. Within weeks of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos’ directive last September to his since-ousted content chief Roy Price to bring in the next Game of Thrones, negotiations were underway that also involved publisher HarperCollins and New Line.
Oh, and that’s not even considering Peter Jackson may be involved in some capacity, and he’s probably not coming cheap. To give you an idea of how much Amazon is spending on literally one TV show, $1 billion is quite literally the GDP of a small island nation. It is one-eighth of what Netflix is spending in 2018 on content across the whole platform. It is enough to buy two luxury islands in the United Arab Emirates and have enough left over for a really sweet supercar selection to ramp off your private island into the ocean. It would be enough to pay for 66 new episodes of Game Of Thrones at its current $15 million per episode final season rate and have enough left over for a spare episode of Westworld, if you want.
So now they just have to make a TV series that stands up to the groundbreaking Oscar-winning fantasy film series, while spending three times as much money with far less guarantee of financial reward! No pressure!
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
