Amazon wraps up filming for “Lord of The Rings"

Amazon Studios’ “Lord of the Rings” series — which reportedly cost a whopping $465 million to make — completed filming in New Zealand Monday. “As Bilbo says, ‘Now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey,’” J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, Payne and McKay said in a joint statement Monday. “Living and breathing Middle-earth these many months has been the adventure of a lifetime. We cannot wait for fans to have the chance to do so as well.”

Considered the most expensive television show in history has wrapped its first season, the show's official title has yet to be announced. It's release date, however, is set for 2 September, 2022. Created by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the series is set during author J.R.R. Tolkien’s second age, a period of Middle-earth history thousands of years before the events of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

Amazon is spending about $465 million filming the first season of the show, according to New Zealand government officials. It is expecting to make five seasons of the show, making it one of the most expensive TV series ever. It said in a press release that the first season would be available in more than 240 nations, with new episodes set tto debut weekly.

Iconic cast members will be featured in the release. Viewers familiar with Tolkien’s “Silmarillion” will recognize that Sauron, the main villain in the theatrical films, rose to power during the second age and secretly forged the One Ring. The epic fantasy plot will take place thousands of years before the events narrated by writer J.R.R. Tolkien in his books “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”