The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Amazon's original pitch for the television rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' novels was to make the series a new adaptation of the latter (effectively a retelling of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)), but the Tolkien estate rejected this proposal. Amazon finally obtained the rights under the conditions that the series be distinct from Peter Jackson's earlier adaptations, and that they couldn't contradict anything that Tolkien had previously written. Early ideas that were proposed included prequel stories featuring characters such as Aragorn, Gimli and Gandalf, but the showrunners preferred to focus on important untold events from the novels' lore rather than simple side stories, so they settled with the studio that the series would take place during the books' Second Age. Since they didn't have the rights to Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion', 'Unfinished Tales' and 'The History of Middle-earth' (which explore the First and Second Ages), they checked the Lord of the Rings novels and appendices for passages about and references to the Second Age that they could set their story in. They consulted with the estate and several Tolkien lore experts (including grandson and novelist Simon Tolkien) about the inclusion of new characters and plot elements.

The dubbing credits for several languages mistakenly list King Durin III as "Durin II".

The opening titles is a musical sequence of matter forming various shapes, based on the "Music of the Ainur" creation myth from J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion".

Featured in The Critical Drinker: The Rings of Power - War For A Fandom (2022)