This page will be updated as more castings and details about the highly anticipated show are revealed.

Amazon's trip to Middle Earth is coming.

The retail giant and streamer has already spent more than two years clearing the way for its highly anticipated Lord of the Rings live-action TV series.

Picked up in a massive $250 million global rights deal, Amazon expects the TV take on J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved franchise to be on the air in 2021, though a formal premiere date has not yet been determined. Season one will span eight episodes, with production starting in February 2020.

The LOTR series could wind up being the first $1 billion TV show once casting, production and VFX are completed. Below, The Hollywood Reporter offers a one-stop guide with all the latest details. Bookmark this page, as it will be updated as more information becomes available.

THE DEAL

Announced in November 2017, Amazon landed global TV rights to The Lord of the Rings and handed out a multiple-season commitment to the series, which will be produced in-house at Amazon Studios alongside the Tolkien Estate and Trust, publisher HarperCollins and Warner Bros. Entertainment's New Line Cinema. (The series was technically renewed for a second season, which is basically a formality.) Sources estimate Amazon's mega-deal for LOTR is to be for five seasons — plus a potential spinoff. Insiders put the price tag for global rights alone to the series at $250 million and believe once things like budgets, casting and visual effects are factored in, the price tag could hit $1 billion. (Yes, $1 billion for a TV show.)

THE PREMISE

Set in Middle-earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

THE CAST

"After undertaking an extensive global search, we are delighted finally to reveal the first group of brilliant performers who will take part in Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series, McKay and Payne said in a joint statement in January at TCA. "These exceptionally talented women and men are more than just our actors: they are the newest members of an ever-expanding creative family that is now working tirelessly to bring Middle-earth to life anew for fans and audiences worldwide."



Details about which roles the cast will take on are being kept under wraps; information below is provided per sources. Additional cast members will be announced at a later date. The core cast has already had its first table read.

Will Poulter (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) will play a young hero named Beldor. (Update: Poulter is no longer attached to the show.)

Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones, The King's Man) is replacing Poulter in the cast as one of the lead roles.

Owain Arthur (Kingdom)

Nazanin Boniadi (Counterpart, Hotel Mumbai, How I Met Your Mother)

Tom Budge (The Pacific)

Ismael Cruz Cordova (The Catch, Ray Donovan)

Tyroe Muhafidin (newcomer)

Sophia Nomvete (Dexter)

Megan Richards (Wanderlust)

Dylan Smith (I Am the Night)

Charlie Vickers (Medici)

Daniel Weyman (Gentleman Jack, Treadstone)

Joseph Mawle (Game of Thrones) will play Oren, the central villain in the series.

Markella Kavenagh, an Australian actress whose credits include Picnic at Hanging Rock, is the female lead, playing a character named Tyra. She was the first person cast in the show.

Ema Horvath (Like.Share.Follow., Don't Look Deeper) will be a series regular.

Morfydd Clark (His Dark Materials) will play a young Galadriel, the character portrayed by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson's LOTR and The Hobbit features.

(Amazon officially confirmed all of the above cast members in January at TCA.)

Maxim Baldry (Years and Years)

THE CREATIVE TEAM

Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic fantasy novels, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (Star Trek 4) serve as showrunners on the series. J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) is set to direct the first two episodes and will executive produce, along with his producing partner Belén Atienza. Writers Gennifer Hutchison (Breaking Bad), Jason Cahill (The Sopranos) and Justin Doble (Stranger Things) are also EPs, as are Lindsey Weber (10 Cloverfield Lane), Bruce Richmond (Game of Thrones), Gene Kelly (Boardwalk Empire) and former Amazon head of genre Sharon Tal Yguado. Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones) is a consulting producer on the series.

TIMELINE

Production on the series is slated to begin in 2020. The series will shoot in New Zealand. Pre-production started in September 2019, with production slated to begin in the coming months in Auckland.

PREMIERE DATE

A formal premiere date and time frame has not been revealed. However, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke told The Hollywood Reporter that the "hope" is that Lord of the Rings will be on the air in 2021. As part of the LOTR deal, the show must be in production within two years of the original pact.

WHAT ABOUT PETER JACKSON?

The New Zealand-based man behind the Lord of the Rings feature film trilogy has not signed on to the Amazon TV series. As of June 2018, Salke said Amazon was "in conversations with him that I think are very amicable about how much involvement he wants and what kind. We haven't figured out exactly what that is yet. He may say he is involved or he's not involved. We're still very much in conversation with him about what kind of involvement he would propose."