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Lord of the Rings begins production on S2

Season 2 of sprawling Tolkien series is now filming in the UK.

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Filming began this week on S2 of The Lord of the Rings.

Production got underway on Monday at the new hub at Bray Studios, just outside London.

Although the first season of the show was filmed in New Zealand, costs and the pandemic saw Amazon switch plans for season two to the U.K.

Filming of the first mammoth season cost $US465 million for Amazon Studios ($AU716m).

The ensemble cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Nazanin Boniadi, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman and Sara Zwangobani.

A new character, Círdan, one of the oldest and wisest of the elves wil feature in S2 but yet to be cast.

The seventh and penultimate episode of The Rings of Power screens Friday on Prime Video.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

13 Responses

  1. I’m going to replace HOTD with LOTR in the coming weeks. I wanted to wait a few weeks for the hype of Sandman to wear off before I watched it (as a comics fan, I was pleased with the series, but I’m beginning to digress). Mixed reviews don’t faze me, I’ll make up my own mind as the time comes.

    1. That’s pretty much my philosophy for watching TV shows (and movies) as well, and after some 40 years of movie and TV drama watching you can develop an intuition (even though its not always right) for a new TV series potential, and whether it will be suitable for a broader audience or not, an audience that will generally prefer escapist entertainment featuring characters they may feel some empathy with. This creative matter is currently tending to get overlooked by some young idealistic Hollywood creatives, and sadly, also by some big UK and Hollywood production studios like Amazon as well.

  2. I must be in the minority! I find House of Dragons to be a bunch of boring soap-opera dialogue scenes, interspersed with some hugely gross violence. Unlike the original GOT, there is not a single likeable character like Tyrion or Cersai.

    Whereas LOTR for me is a much richer, world-building behemoth. I personally am loving the pace and character development. Sure it has some flaws, but for me, its head and shoulders above HOD.

  3. Halfway through Episode 5, and that was it for me. I felt they haven’t moved an inch since Episode 1 apart from the Numenor plot. B.o.r.i.n.g.

      1. But still a pretty low bar. The conveniences are just far too… well… convenient. Everyone is always saved in the nick of time, often multiple times per episode, and I’m surprised Galadriel’s horse could even move at all, what with her wearing the thickest plot armour ever created!

  4. By any reckoning the large budget spent for the first season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is probably the main attraction for many to watch this show, the value of which is also a bone of contention with some less than complimentary media critics. I suspect that this Amazon Prime Lord of the Rings adaption could have been made much cheaper and the end creative result would have been much the same, it matters not though as the die is cast for a full five seasons to be made, whether the same screenplay writers will remain for those five years we shall wait and see.

    1. I hope they have gone back to the drawing board. There’s so little plot. Everything is drawn out with needless conflicts that hen get resolved.

      They originally intended to film s1 and 2 back to back. The delay makes me hope they went back to retool the show. Although maybe it was just covid.

      It’s salvageable but if the main plot of s1 so far was a film. It’d still be the first act. With 2 episodes left, that won’t change. Less plot in an 8 episode season than an 88 minute movie. But hey we saw Elrond smash rocks and be banished from the mines which was then promptly forgotten.

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