Former Emmy-winning Game of Thrones writer and co-executive producer Bryan Cogman has joined Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series as a consultant, Variety has confirmed.
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Following the announcement of his overall deal with Amazon in September, Cogman will work alongside writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay in developing the series. Cogman began on Game of Thrones as an assistant to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators and showrunners of the HBO series. He was known for his in-depth knowledge of the world of Westeros, and the final episode he wrote was Season 8’s second installment, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”
The highly-anticipated Lord of the Rings series will be set in the Second Age, Amazon recently confirmed. That places approximately 3,000 years of history between the series and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Casual fans may not realize it, but Jackson’s Fellowship of the Rings actually depicted the end of the Second Age, when the last alliance of elves and men confronted Sauron’s forces. The Second Age covered nearly 3,441 years, and it began after the banishment of Morgoth, the dark lord before Sauron. There’s a lot of story potential in that time, including the rise of Sauron, the creation of the One Ring, and the emergence of the Ringwraiths.
The rights to the fan-favorite fantasy series were acquired by Amazon last year and is expected to be the most expensive television series ever made, rumored figures for both the television rights and production costs for the entire series are in the $500 million range.
Production has yet to begin for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series but is expected to premiere in 2021.
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A world-renowned literary work, and winner of the International Fantasy Award and Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, The Lord of the Rings novels was named Amazon customers’ favorite book of the millennium in 1999 and Britain’s best-loved novel of all time in BBC’s The Big Read in 2003. Its theatrical adaptations, from New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson, earned a combined gross of nearly $6 billion worldwide. With an all-star cast that included Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin and Orlando Bloom, The Lord of the Rings trilogy garnered a combined 17 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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