Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series has a premiere date

A new quest is about to begin.

On Monday, Amazon Studios unveiled the first look at its ‘Lord of the Rings’ original series and announced a premiere date: September 2, 2022.

The image, released alongside the end of filming on Season 1, features more of the scenic New Zealand landscape familiar from Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning film trilogy.

The series, estimated to have cost Amazon $465 million (Dh1.7 billion) for one season, is set thousands of years prior to the events of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ and marks the first time author J.R.R. Tolkien’s Second Age of Middle-earth has been adapted for the screen.

The series’ sprawling cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson (‘Spartacus’), Robert Aramayo (‘Game of Thrones’), Nazanin Boniadi (‘Counterpart’) and many others.

“As Bilbo says, ‘Now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.’ Living and breathing Middle-earth these many months has been the adventure of a lifetime. We cannot wait for fans to have the chance to do so as well,” showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay said in a statement.

Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series, which has not yet been titled, has quite the legacy to live up to: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 150 million copies, and the film trilogy won 17 Oscars in all, including best picture for 2003’s ‘The Return of the King.’