Photo: New Line Cinema
Peak TV is an arms race, and Amazon has a ton of money in its war chest. The streaming studio has just given a multi-season, straight-to-series commitment to a Lord of the Rings show that will take place before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring. Amazon will produce the series in part with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, which the studio reportedly paid upwards of $250 million for the global TV rights, according to Deadline. The series will, of course, be set in Middle Earth, and the deal allows for potential spinoff programs as well. It sounds a little like Amazon has just found its small-screen Star Wars, because this J.R.R. Tolkien saga has enough material to mine for a century.