Amazon's Lord Of The Rings TV Show Appears To Have Resumed Filming
Nothing official has been announced, but all signs say LOTR is going ahead in the COVID-19 safe haven of New Zealand.
While film industries around the world are trying to get production back up and running, studios are eyeing off New Zealand as a country that has functionally eliminated the virus. Seven international productions, including James Cameron's Avatar sequels and the Lord of the Rings TV show have been granted clearance to fly cast and crew in for production.
Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net posted an SDCC weekend update on Amazon's Lord Of The Rings adaptation, saying the show was scaling up production in NZ, and is now actively filming for the show.
Lord of the Rings SDCC update: JA Bayona is CURRENTLY filming in New Zealand, the biggest production in the world to resume filming post-COVID.
— TheOneRing.net (@theoneringnet) July 26, 2020
⚔️New NZ cast added
⚔️More NZ crew than any production ever
⚔️Galadriel, Elrond & Sauron confirmed
⚔️Cast has a tighter bond than ever
While we're not sure what the source for this information is, a number of different sources hint at a large production in the works. J.A. Bayona, who has been tapped to direct the first two episodes of the show, posted on Instagram about cinematographer Oscar Faura in early July, saying that the two were currently filming Lord Of The Rings together.
As of early July, official word was that pre-production on Lord Of The Rings was in the works, though shooting hadn't yet started.
BGM Talent, which has previously announced its role in casting local extras for the Lord Of The Rings series also seems to have been busy in the last month. As long ago as late June, it posted a Facebook post urgently calling for "funky looking people" with interesting faces to be featured in Amazon's TV show.
More recently, the agency has posted updates around filming involving large numbers of extras--an update on July 13 boasted of "50+ talent booked on a show," calling it a "larger production," while July 22 had 80 extras booked for two consecutive days.
While information about the Lord Of The Rings TV show is still thin on the ground, we've rounded up everything we currently know about it. The show is tipped to be one of the biggest in television history, with its budget rumored to top $1 billion.
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