There are lots of conflicting stories out there about whether or not Sir Peter Jackson will return to the world of Middle-earth for Amazon's mega-expensive Lord of the Rings episodic series.

The filmmaker famously picked up multiple Oscars for bringing the incredible world of J. R. R. Tolkien to the big screen in both the LOTR and Hobbit films, so it was only natural for fans to speculate that he'd be interested in returning for Amazon's half-billion dollar investment in Lord of the Rings.

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There were rumblings in April from Jackson's attorney Peter Nelson that a dialogue had been opened up with Amazon, and this week, multiple foreign-language outlets supposedly quoted Jackson saying that he was helping put together the Lord of the Rings series' creative team.

© Getty Images Frazer Harrison / Staff

Digital Spy went to Jackson's representatives on Thursday (June 7) for clarity and they told us that the director is not involved in Amazon's project at this time.

Jackson is currently very busy producing the long-awaited film adaptation of apocalyptic novel Mortal Engines, and an exhaustive documentary for the BBC that will reconstruct World War I using never-before-seen footage.

Meanwhile, of his former colleagues, Andy Serkis (aka Gollum) and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) have both ruled themselves out of Amazon's show — but Sir Ian McKellen seems keen to play Gandalf again!

© New Line Cinema

"Gandalf is over 7,000 years old, so I'm not too old [yet]," he recently joked.

Amazon Prime Video's series will fit into Lord of the Rings lore in the period before The Fellowship of the Ring and will be an original story, with the blessing of the Tolkien estate.

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