Lord of the Rings TV show shopped around Hollywood J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings could be on its way to the small screen. Deadline reports that rights to the seminal trilogy is being shopped around Hollywood, with Netflix, Amazon and HBO in rights-holders' sights. An eye-watering US200m-$250m is reportedly the price of admission. After raiding Smaug's hoard to pay for …
The Silmarillion was never written with publication in mind unfortunately. It was Tolkien's own reference material for LoTR etc. Christopher Tolkien edited it intro something approaching a book and published it purely as a money making effort. It has a lot of really good story material buried in it, the siege of Gondolin, Beren and Luthein, etc.
The Silmarillion was never written with publication in mind
Given that the first attempt to publish it was during Tolkiens lifetime I somewho doubt that - especially as he himself sent it to the publisher (who rejected it) just after the Hobbit had become popular..
It's true that it was finally published after he died but he had tried to get it published before he wrote LOTR.
What, like the Silmarillion?
Enough stuff in there for at least a couple of series..
(Even more wierd - I found myself explaining the history of Galadriel and the Silmarils to my wife when we were walking the dog a couple of days ago.. got a few funny looks from passers-by)
"back when Sauron was mortal"
"Isn't Sauron one of the Maiar? If so he was never mortal."
"You're thinking of his former boss, Morgoth."
Neither are, or were, mortal - both were "Ainur", the next level down from Eru Ilúvatar (the only "real" god in Tolkien's universe). The more powerful ones were called Valar, the lesser were called Maiar.
Sauron did actually "die" physically at least three times though...
> Sauron did actually "die" physically at least three times though...
Also, he did not die in the end of LOTR, either. At one point Gandalf notes that destroying the Ring causes him to diminish so that cannot be foreseen when he will rise again. But he said nothing about Sauron dying off completely (and he should know, being one of the Maiar himself).
In fact, this gives an opening for the new TV series: Sauron starting to build a new dark empire in the present...
"But he said nothing about Sauron dying off completely (and he should know, being one of the Maiar himself)."
It's not quite as simple as that because, for the Maiar, dying on Arda doesn't mean the end of their existence, or "dying off completely". Gandalf did actually die on Arda after his battle with the Balrog but was "sent back" (to Arda) by the Ainur and this implies that Sauron too could similarly be killed and no longer exist on Arda. However, if Sauron was killed then Melko/Melkor, also being one of the Ainur, could presumably send him back too.
Poor old Melkor/Morgoth had his feet hacked off and was exiled into some kind of abyssal alternate dimension at the end of The Silmarillion/the First Age if I recall my reading correctly. So he's not in a position to ressurect Sauron.
I think in the books , Sauron survived the destruction of the ring, but he was reduced to some very minor spirit mornfully haunting some dark nook in the mountains somewhere.
Collectively, the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films have grossed close to $6 billion at the worldwide box office, however the deal with the Tolkien estate was for points on the net and the famous "Hollywood accounting" meant that the film has not made a profit. The Estate had to sue the production company for damages.
True. As the owners of the source material they must have got a fair chunk of that 3 billion. + hobbit money
You've obviously never encountered Hollywood accounting! They completely outdo the Mob when it comes to laundering and hiding money. And they do it in full view which beats anything read in the Panama and Paradise Papers.
Isn't Sauron one of the Maiar
Yes. His boss was one of the Vala (think - minor deities) whereas the Maia were more like angels.
Essentially unkillable - but banishable. Which is what happens to Sauron. Morgoth himself is trapped in Valinor until the end of time.
I can write a can't-miss treatment where a beautiful platinum blonde princess with a fabulously elaborate hairdo brings baby dragons back to life through an elaborate ceremony that involves a bonfire fueled by chopped-up Ents! I'm thinking serious crossover potential here! KA-CHING!!!!
Tell you what, I will give you an EP (executive producer) credit! Have your people call my people!!
How much sex are you planning to crowbar into your excellent new series?
Are we talking a few longing gazes and chase kisses, or are we getting down to some seriously hot hobbit-on-hobbit action?
There's all sorts of opportunities for a bit of S&M. Tolkein is always talking about the whips of Sauron.
And what does Radagast want all those animals for anyway?
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Well the Entwives are long gone. Are there any Entmistresses?
If not, what about Enthookers?
As the Ents have perfected a drink that will make your extremities grow - they can obviously fund their sex and drugs lifestyle by selling penis enlargement pills online. Side effects: When drunk, may cause a stiff neck...
JRR said that Merry and Pippin had got taller, he was perhaps too polite to mention any other effects. OK, I'll get my coat then - the long, dirty mac, obviously.
I imagine the Scouring of the Shire would make quite interesting filming. It could be sold to the film producers as Tolkien's anti-Socialist rant, which it to some degree is - though in the context of its own times it's more an anti-Marxist rant - and equally successfully sold to the masses as Tolkien's anti-1% rant, which it also is. Dobre chut!!!
I imagine the Scouring of the Shire would make quite interesting filming.
A notable omission of the otherwise very impressive films. But I doubt that the TV show will do that. It will be a shameless cash-in, formulated to excrete whole "seasons" of glossy, fomulaic boxed set productions that s*** on Tolkien's legacy. Special effects will be good, but if there's an ounce of merit amongst the tonnes of Hollywood ordure I'll be amazed.
Whoever holds and is selling the rights ought to be tied to a large rune stone and thrown into some nice deep water.
"I have a horrible image on one 40 minute episode devoted entirely to one long-winded speech."
... rather like the way I wondered how they could spin the Hobbit out into 3 films only to realize about 10 minutes into the first film that it was because, depressingly, they'd left all the songs in
Not sure on your logic. Tolkien was against technology and the rise of technology, hence Saruman was breeding better warriors and using things like crossbows instead of bows. The shire was a comment on how technology was ruining the way things used to be. If I remember his autobiography correctly, been a few years since I read it.
The Scouring of the Shire was indeed Tolkien's commentary on the industrial revolution. He grew up in countryside in the Black Country at the beginning of the 20th century (quite well into the industrial revolution). Quite a lot of his inspiration for The Shire came from there (according to his biography -- also some years since I read it)!
My apologies -- I always thought that Birmingham was part of the Black Country (especially in industrial revolution times). I didn't realise it was more tightly defined (certainly seems to be nowadays)! I have now learnt something about geography! At least I don't attempt to pronounce Shrewsbury.
Not so, just last week we were discussing if the latest Cray super computer, armed with a quad pack of AMD's finest gfx cards; could get double digit fps around Minas Tiruth without crashing every time you use a porting skill or walked through a door.
ICON
Gandalf REALLY let himself go in later years
I'm guessing they'll try to cash in on the success of that Thrones thing . Presumably whats being sold is the whole rights to middle earth to F*** in the ass any way they want , rather than the LOTR story.
So it'll probably turn into a sex and violence soap for the masses , ala Thrones.
There's an unofficial (and never published in English) *alternative* telling of the events of LOTR. The premise is that history is written by the victors and thus LOTR is propaganda written to justify the actions of the racist and technologically backward men and elves. It's told from the perspective of the enlightened (but ultimately defeated) Easterners.
The Tolkein estate has nixed any English publication (the original is in Russian) but an English translation approved by the author is available online.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
I haven't read it, but I like devil's advocate aspect of it. It was a point that first came to my young awareness in an Isaac Asimov (himself a historian as well as a Sci-fi author and biochemist) short story about using a time machine to learn more about Carthage.
All we know about Carthage is through their enemies the Romans. The Romans razed the city to the ground. According to the Romans, people in Carthage ate babies.
"Lord" sounds a bit sexist? Any suggestions for a viable substitute?
Bring it up to date.
"Baroness of the Internet"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/06/martha_lane_fox_virtue_signalling_website_badge
The everyday struggles of the trailblazer of the dot com revolution and member of the Upper Chamber in the land of Westminster. The epic story of how she transformed the Government Digital Service and how she hopes to bring Trust to the WWW. (Wild Wild West World Wide Web)
Cameo by Lord Sugar
....TV works on the basis of "....what can we plagiarise that's hot...."
Currently what's Hot is Game of Thrones......which in a TV executives unbelievable small mind and short attention span can be compressed into the single word "Fantasy".
Dragons, bad people, good people, heroes, scheming GoT has it all.
So let's take LoTR and reimagine it with a GoT perspective, that's bound to sell.
You might well laugh, but the TV industry, even in it's current 'Golden Age' (for all the dross out there there's still some pretty good shows made) would look at $500m for say a 7-8 year series as cheap, if it's Amazon or Netflix or Apple or a similar streaming service $500m could equate to a $4-46bn return in committed subscribers for just that show. Look at GoT, it had 31m average viewers during season 7, now let's just say that 15% of them subscribe to HBO because of GoT so that's 4.5m (rounded off), at $10 per month or $120 per year equates to about $550m of revenue per year (OK I accept you won't get 31m straight away, but the potential is there), plus the international rights which would certainly offset the bulk of licence and production costs for seasons 1 and 2.
None of us would want the quality to suffer, but the initial investment level is not that big if they can make it a hit.
Most of the appeal of GoT is the scheming and intrigue, lifted from European history. Until the most recent series, the fantasy elements have sat on the periphery, just as our maps once had areas marked 'here be dragons'.
It seems odds to cancel House of Cards on Spacey's account, when his character was fading and Claire Underwood had just risen to the top - though in this age of 45's carnival the show had lost some of its relevance.
Looking forward to another series of Wolf Hall with Mark Rylance, even if we know the ending!
"Most of the appeal of GoT is the scheming and intrigue, lifted from European history. Until the most recent series, the fantasy elements have sat on the periphery"
Which I guess is why it turned out boring as shite and I ended up dumping it after a couple of seasons. No I don't care who's screwing who or whose family has a ten generations old rivalry with another. I want magic blowing shit up and dragons setting fire to things.
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"Dragons, bad people, good people, heroes, scheming..."
What I love about GoT is that there aren't per se "good people" and "bad people", just people doing things that are 'good' or 'bad', but rarely completely good or completely bad, and in any case 'good' and 'bad' aren't that simple. Everyone is acting to maximise their own 'good', based on a worldview that is built of a number of events starting from childhood, many conflicting with each other and often traumatic. Each of many, many 'sides' has their own 'good' and 'evil', and these change as events have an effect on the characters' experiences.
LOTR, while being a fine tale rendered into an excellent film trilogy, suffers the one-dimensionality of absolute good vs absolute evil, and for all the fact that there are nuances (especially Gollum's charecter), pretty much every charecter can be put squarely in one camp or another.
In any case, LOTR TV series... ugh!
Yes, it is what's being used to justify evil and selfishness today....
But Tolkien mythology is based on the Good vs. Evil struggle - and influenced by the WW wars - and it won't be as forceful as it is if its characters weren't on one of the sides strongly, although a few ones aren't - but have to choose a side eventually. Boromir or Théoden, for example. Denethor is another example of a character who fails at the end. Anyway, when so much is it at stake - that's not a simple foreign king, it's the servant of the Evil Lord himself - people have to choose a side, and the real heroes shine....
In the Silmarillion characters are often less "pure", anyway.
Soon after Desolation came out I found a copy of the old Rankin-Bass version on DVD - maybe 80 minutes long (it was a TV movie, so 2 hours with commercials, back in the 70's), and it stayed very true to the book. Not nearly as "exciting" as the new movies, but then it didn't need to be because it wasn't stretched out.
God preserve us no! Fucking awful books!
I read them all when I was in my early teens.
The mood is depressingly dark in most of them - perfect teenage fodder.
Not a 'family' movie though - I'd say Stephen Donaldsons 'Mirror of her Dreams' would be a better bet - could even see that one as a Disney...(bit of tweaking).
The problem with the Covenant novels would be selling the idea.
Pitch "Let's film the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, it's a fantasy series, like LotR or GoT"
Exec "Sounds good, tell me more"
Pitch "Well, TC is a leper in modern day America, he somehow gets magically transported to The Land, where the white gold wedding ring of his beloved lost wife gives him magic powers"
Exec "Sounds very interesting, tell me more"
Pitch "Well, when he arrives the first thing he does is rape his rescuer"
Exec "Get out"
<Door Slams>
---> "The problem with the Covenant novels would be selling the idea.
Pitch "Let's film the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, it's a fantasy series, like LotR or GoT"
Exec "Sounds good, tell me more"
Pitch "Well, TC is a leper in modern day America, he somehow gets magically transported to The Land, where the white gold wedding ring of his beloved lost wife gives him magic powers"
Exec "Sounds very interesting, tell me more"
Pitch "Well, when he arrives the first thing he does is rape his rescuer"
Exec "Get out"
<Door Slams>"
*******************************************
I agree if you pitched it like that you would get that result.....now try this way.
Pitch:- Thomas Covenant is a Leper in modern day America, the Leprosy is actually an allusion for how as we get older many of our dreams and ambitions get smashed by the burdens of the society in which we live and as a result we become more insular.
He gets transported to a fantasy world called The Land, which he just doesn't believe is real, his disbelief becomes a major theme of his character development.
Upon arriving he is rescued from a cliff by a young girl who sees him as a character foretold of in local legends. Covenant is overwhelmed to discover that his leprosy is mitigated to the point he can feel things again and in a moment of madness, driven by his refound senses, awakened sexual drive after years of none and disbelief of The Land he rapes the girl. She accepts this as the actions of what she perceives as a Deity figure and a whole load of consequences evolve from this single act.
****************************************************
Exec "You expect the majority of our viewers to care about literary allusions? We have a hard enough time keeping them from channel hoping during revenue generating ad breaks. What's hot right now is magic and dragons. Not rapists who spend large parts of the story feeling sorry for themselves. Next you'll be wanting me to cast Harvey Weinstein as Thomas Covenant"
>Why hasn't anyone done a Thomas Covenant series/film?
Fuck that, Lord Kevin "Landwaster" Keegan and all that crap, no thanks. Been there, seen it, done it and wasted a portion of my life on those books.
Ian Banks culture novels, now we are talking.
Thomas Covenant was the worst set of books I have ever had the misfortune to read, and I read the initial Battlefield Earth.
Let's review the plot. Thomas Covenant mopes around continually abusing everyone he meets, and moaning constantly "I'm a leper'.
A more Guardian set of books I can't imagine.
Not sure how they'd get in the grindingly awful prose either.
David Langford did a lovely spoof :
""Hellfire!" erupted Thomas Covenant, his raw, self-inflicted nostrils clenching in white-hot, stoical anguish while his gaunt, compulsory visage knotted with fey misery. His lungs were clogged with ruin. A hot, gelid, gagging, fulvous tide of self-accusation dinned in his ears: leper bestseller outcast unclean.... To release the analystic refulgence, the wild magic of the white gold ring he wore, could conceivably shatter the Arch of Time, utterly destroy the Land, and put a premature, preterite end to the plot!
'Yet what other way was there? The argute notion pierced his mind like a jerid. Only thus could the unambergrised malison of Lord Foul be aneled. Only thus. He clenched his clenching. Hellfire and damnation!
'At that point he winced at a swift, sapid lucubration ...' "
>How about, god forbid, creating a whole new story 1000 years later.... after all, there's always nefarious types wanting to rule the world.
A line comes to mind from the excellent Vincent Price horror flick "Theatre of Blood" that Ian Hendry utters, slightly paraphrased:
"Only Hollywood would have the temerity to rewrite Tolkien"
"and originality tends to cost even more money.."
Sad thing is that originality does not only cost money in the sense of the expense needed to create a film/TV script, it also costs money at the box office because so many people prefer to see something they 'know'.
No matter how many people wail and gnash at Hollywood sequels, remakes and reimaginings, truth is they only exist because they sell, and they only sell because that's how most people are wired
I don't see how that follows. At all. It's not that people aren't willing to go watch something new, it's that there's no guarantee those who do will like it, and if it's crap they sure will prevent lots of others from wasting their time and money on it. Whereas a known franchise, even if not quite as successful as the original, is much less of a risk for a producer - and that's the reason we get sequels.
Taxes are going to rise,
To save the earth before it dies.
Incomes down down dilli-o,
dilli-o dilli-o di!
You'll pay an extra 2%,
To save the world's environment.
Up up dillio-di
We're all going to pay.
Hooray!
I vote no. We don't want him in politics. I'd almost prefer "I'm going to build a wall and Mordor is going to pay!"
The image that first came to mind was Celeborn as a TV-presenter interviewing various personalities, like the uruk-hai second-in-command bitching about what a drama-queen Saruman was, the trolls from the gates of Mordor explaining what an art it was to get those doors open and how Sauron was too cheap to pay for oil to lubricate the joints or finally some hobbits on how they were sure that Mad Old Baggins' boy was destined for greater things.
Not sure why people are wondering what they have left to cover. Like all the recent random TV series popping up it will simply be the same story again. Some are tweaked, some not at all.
I wish they'd remember they can write new things. The amount of "films remade as a series" on netflix and amazon is crazy. Recent releases include a series based on the film "shooter", the "Snatch" series etc. this will be the same.
Minor tweaks but the same story we've been told 5 or 6 times now.
I think there's an opportunity for some good writing. The films had the special effects, but some of the writing was pisspoor. They completely dumped any idea of character development - which there is some of in the books - and they left out the good lines they should have nicked from the book, and didn't replace them with anything of note.
Missing out the scouring of the Shire was proof of it. That's a vitally important part of both the story and the character arcs - and it's not as if they didn't have enough time to cover it. Some of those CGI battle sequences were in desperate need of editing down.
Not that I'm saying TV will do any better, but it's always possible. There's been some amazing boxsets in the last 15 years.
E1: intro characters with some orc bashing.
E2: Find a super elvish sword and kill some orcs
E3: Bilbo (the Brave) humps an elf (sex unspecified)
E4: Team-kill some orcs
E5: Bilbo gets humped by a ethnic-minority dwarf and runs into Gandalf the Gone-off
E6: Kill some orcs and, for good measure Bilbo humps one.
E7: Bilbo befriends a dead dragon and rides it for the rest of the season.
E8: Bilbo humps the elf (turns out to be Lucy Lawless) whilst riding the dragon and kills loads of orcs.
E9: Big battle. Bilbo about to die at the hands of reincarnated Sauron ... just as season ends ...
"I was told that Dune series was quite good, and I should look it up. Was that not true?"
Personally I thought it was good. Perhaps not perfect in some areas, but far more accurate to the books (both the Dune series and then the Children of Dune series) than the film version. Well worth a watch if you enjoyed the first three books.
What version? The latest I've seen made Poirot a Catholic bigot.... scriptwriters - mostly failed writers, I believe - became arrogant and lack the humbleness needed to work on masterpieces.
There's a reason why some works became masterpieces, and changing them in the attempt to show how great you are usually just show your arrogance and the incompetence which usually accompany it.
@tfewster: The Watch books don't have too many of those though.
I don't tend to think "CSI: Ankh-Morpork", but rather "A Touch of Frost: Ankh-Morpork" but with even more humour. Unlike every other Discworld TV adaptation (of which The Hogfather is still the best), The Watch needs to actually be quite dark (as well as funny) and definitely aimed at adults.
Why not....Put the money towards developing The Watch?
Because a good half of the magic of the books is in the descriptive vocabulary and the narrative, aided and abetted by the imagination of the reader. Little or none of that translates onto the screen.
Which (IMHO) is a big part of the explanation for the poor results of the various Discworld movie adaptations tried so far. Making a Pratchett-themed movie is easy - making a film of one of the core Discworld novels with the fun and energy of the books, well........ I'll believe that when I see it.
And you can be sure that Hollywood would get their oar in and f*** it all up. So much of Discworld is about Britain, London, and a Britain-centric world concept that every tiny reference would need explaining for the overseas audiences. Except that they couldn't stop the plot to explain, so they'd just remove the thing that needed explanation, and drip by drip they'd end up systematically removing everything other than character and location names, with these thrown into a bastardised version of the original plot.
That's why not.
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Hey ho, derry do, merry do my darling.
old Tom Bombadillo knows TV execs are frightening,
butcher up the story they will to try and make it more exciting,
modernising it will need, with lots of lens-flare and fighting
Hey ho derry do, if it's done by amazon it'll be less enlightening.
If HBO get involved the level of nudity will be rising. Merry do my DAAAAAAARRRLLLIIIINNNNG
Post-apocalyptic setting, with no electricity, yet they manage to have a rave, complete with a DJ and lighting effects. I think they had explained that away with a generator - because after hundreds of years it would still run and the fuel would be available...
But then the show was on MTV - I can't imagine what they'll do with it now on Spike!
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