Amazon Moving to UK For Lord of the Rings Season Two

Amazon is set to move their Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for the already-ordered second season. Amazon Studios announced on Thursday that the as-yet-untitled series will film its second season in the UK, describing the shift as “align[ing] with the studio’s strategy of expanding its production footprint and investing in studio space across the U.K.”

The first season of the show filmed in New Zealand and will continue post-production there through June of next year, while pre-production on season two will begin concurrently in the UK after the new year.

“We want to thank the people and the government of New Zealand for their hospitality and dedication and for providing The Lord of the Rings series with an incredible place to begin this epic journey,” said Vernon Sanders, VP and Co-Head of TV, Amazon Studios. “We are grateful to the New Zealand Film Commission, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Tourism New Zealand, Auckland Unlimited, and others for their tremendous collaboration that supported the New Zealand film sector and the local economy during the production of Season One.”

The series is set to premiere on Prime Video on September 2nd, 2022. It is described as follows:

“The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, 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.