Production on Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series Restarts in New Zealand

After sitting on pause for the last few months, several productions throughout the industry are [...]

By Charlie Ridgely

After sitting on pause for the last few months, several productions throughout the industry are finally beginning to roll cameras once again. A few projects have begun shooting in New Zealand where it's a little safer to do so. This includes Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV series, which just restarted production in New Zealand, according to a new report from Deadline. The project was granted a border exemption by the New Zealand government in order to get things going.

Lord of the Rings, which has already been renewed for a second season at Amazon, had completed production on its first two episodes when the pandemic began shutting things down. Fortunately, the production team had already planned a significant break in filming after those two episodes, so the time off just allowed for them to continue scripting Season 2.

The series is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. It stars Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Bonladi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawie, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Daniel Weyman, and Maxim Baldry.

One face that won't be appearing in the series is that of Orlando Bloom, who starred in Peter Jackson's film trilogy as Legolas. While he's not set to reprise his role, he's clearly excited to see what the series has in store.

"One of the producers on that, I'm working with quite closely on a few different projects I'm developing for Amazon, because I've got this first-look deal, and he's working with Amazon on that, producing that show, so he's on the ground over there right now," Bloom detailed to Collider. "And I kinda had a few questions for him to begin with, and then I was like, you know what? I don't need to know anymore. It's not, obviously, a remake, it's actually not based on the Fellowship or any of that, so I think it could be really, really interesting, from that perspective."

Amazon's Lord of the Rings series is set to make its debut on Prime Video sometime in 2021. Are you looking forward to the new project? Let us know in the comments!

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