Amazon’s Lord of the Rings First Season Reportedly Cost $465 Million

Amazon Studios has pumped a wild amount of money into their Lord of the Rings series, with the first season reportedly costing upward of half a billion dollars. THR reports that the first season of the show will reportedly see Amazon spend about NZ$650 million ($465 million U.S.) for the first season. That blows initial reports out of the water, which stated that the drama would cost $500 mmillion for multiple seasons.

“What I can tell you is Amazon is going to spend about $650 million in season one alone,” Stuart Nash, New Zealand minister for economic development and tourism, said to Morning Report. “This is fantastic, it really is … this will be the largest television series ever made.”

Amazon Studios has declined to comment on the figure, but even partially true that obviously would be an enormous amount. By comparison, Game of Thrones cost about $100 million per season, starting with $6 million per episode for season one and going up to $15 million for the final season. THR notes that the cost for LOTR likely involves not only production, but the rights to the franchise which are estimated at $250 million.

The series stars Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Joseph Mawle and more, and is expected to debut later this year with a second season already ordered. The official description reads:

“Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”