Still from “The Lord of the Rings: The Ring Community”.
New Line Cinema
Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings” TV show is becoming a costly endeavor for the tech company.
On Friday, New Zealand’s Minister of Economic Development and Tourism revealed that the fantasy drama will be one of the most expensive TV series ever made, with a first season price of around $ 465 million.
“But what I can tell you is that Amazon will spend about $ 650 million in the first season alone,” Stuart Nash told Morning Report. The figure he provided was in local currency.
The production figure is massive and is probably the largest sum any studio has spent to produce a single television season. By comparison, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” cost about $ 100 million per season. The first season episodes cost about $ 6 million each and eventually reached $ 15 million for the eighth season.
Amazon paid around $ 250 million for Tolkien’s property rights in 2017.
“This is going to be the biggest TV series ever made,” Nash said.
The figures, published as part of the New Zealand government’s Official Information Act, were first reported by New Zealand-based Stuff. His report indicated that Amazon wants to film five seasons in the country and possibly produce a derivative series.
Amazon’s spending in New Zealand will result in a tax cut of about $ 114 million and has been marked as a “significant financial risk” by the country’s treasury. There is no limit on how much Amazon is allowed to invest and therefore New Zealand could be stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars to help subsidize the project.
However, production is likely to bring a major financial boost to the local economy, as Amazon pays for local labor, hotels, and food, among other things. Then there is the future lump of tourism. The trilogies of Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” were a big plus for New Zealand as they attracted travelers from all over the world.
The series “The Lord of the Rings” is currently in production and is expected to debut in late 2021.