Amazon’s The Rings of Power may be the most expensive TV show ever made, but a new report says the House of Jeff Bezos actually offered the Tolkien estate less money for the rights than Netflix did. Netflix also had their eye on building a Middle-Earth franchise and outbid Amazon, but the Tolkien Estate turned them down. The reason? According to one source for the Hollywood Reporter, the Tolkien estate weren’t fans of Netflix’s pitch, which revolved around “the Marvel approach.”
The source says Tolkien’s estate was “freaked out” by the idea, which would have gone the way of lots of little stories (a Gandalf series, an Aragorn series, etc.) that eventually built up into one big one. It sort of makes sense, since it’s worked so well for the MCU. But it really hasn’t ever worked for any other franchise, which might be why Amazon’s relatively modest approach ended up being more appealing. In addition to being able to focus all the attention on one show instead of spreading their resources out over multiple mini-franchises, Tolkien’s estate reportedly has a lot of control over the Rings of Power series, and that probably made focusing on one show sound a lot easier than juggling several.
We’ll never know for sure, but early signs looks like the Tolkien estate made the right call. The Rings of Power is a hit for Amazon that’s garnered a lot of praise for its fidelity to the source material. Meanwhile, Netflix saved a lot of money that it can pump into its Stranger Things-verse until long after its original cast starts collecting Social Security.
