The news recently arrived that Season One of Amazon's ambitious adaptation of earlier stories from The Lord Of The Rings sprawling canon had wrapped shooting in New Zealand. While that first run of episodes were shot in the same place as Peter Jackson's two Tolkien trilogies, the next will film in the UK.
Amazon made the announcement on Thursday, without specifying where the series will shoot in Britain. Pre-production for Season 2 will start early next year. "We want to thank the people and the government of New Zealand for their hospitality and dedication and for providing The Lord Of The Rings series with an incredible place to begin this epic journey," Amazon Studios co-head of TV Vernon Sanders. "We are grateful to the New Zealand Film Commission, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Tourism New Zealand, Auckland Unlimited, and others for their tremendous collaboration that supported the New Zealand film sector and the local economy during the production of Season One."
The series takes place during Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and LOTR's' books, the story follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
Post-production on the first season will continue in New Zealand and the plan is for it to launch on Amazon Prime Video on 2 September 2022.