We’re getting a whole new adventure with this ring (Picture: Alamy)

Amazon bosses are thought to have posed as tourists in order to scout filming locations in Scotland for the upcoming Lord Of The Rings TV adaptation.

Portree on the Isle of Skye, Dunskey Castle and Portpatrick, and Scourie were all reportedly visited by production staff, as well as Loch Lomond and nearby Balloch Castle Country Park, and Callander in Perthshire.

The TV series, based on JRR Tolkien’s fantasy epic, is expected to feature the biggest production budget in TV history with Amazon handing over £1 billion to tell a serialised version of the story, which follows hobbit Frodo as he journeys to Mordor to destroy the One Ring.

Dunskey Castle is one of the locations scouts are visiting (Picture: Getty)

An insider told Daily Record: ‘When Amazon people scouted locations, they didn’t make themselves known, acted as tourists and connected straight away with local communities.’




Little is known about the series although it is thought there will be a focus on the life of Aragorn, played by Viggo Mortensen in the big-screen productions.

Callander may also stand in for Middle-earth (Picture: Getty)

Amazon had to bid against Netflix for the rights to the novels, and they won after offering a staggering £200 million for the rights.

Head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke confirmed in 2018 that she expects the show to hit screens by 2021 and revealed that, similar to Peter Jackson’s big screen movies, they would film the entire series in one block rather than once a year.

Caption: FILM. ‘LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING’.

ELIJAH WOOD

Copyright: NEW LINE CINEMA

And although it was confirmed by Peter himself he was not going to be involved at all, fans of the OG film franchise can breathe a sigh of relief that the New Zealand filmmaker may still sprinkle some of his magic on the reboot.

The team behind the Lord Of The Rings film franchise as we know it, Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, told Metro.co.uk they’re keen to help in any way that he can, as he explained the showrunners were going to send him some scripts for the PJ look over.

‘I don’t have thoughts on it because I haven’t seen [anything],’ he said when asked on the Amazon takeover.

‘I think they’re going to send us some scripts to see if we can help them along. I wish them all the best and if we can help them we certainly will try.

‘It’s a big task.’

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