Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series
Obviously, I’ll wait and see once it comes out.<p>But it seems odd to spend so much and not have a single established creator that has put out great content. And not to involve Jackson seems off because even having him in a consulting role would be a good sign.<p>Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t anything remarkable and seem to have just done other Amazon shows.<p>Of course there are video projects done by unknowns that turn out great (Jackson had done Heavenly Creatures and Frighteners and a few others before LOTR), but I was kind of hoping there’d be some creative team who is really into Tolkien who tells great stories.<p>Also, I don’t recognize the actors at all. Like not a single one. Compared to LOTR, they didn’t rely on stars but they had Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Sean Aston, Viggo Mortenson, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett. It seems strange to not have anyone. I thought this was a cost cutting effort, but that doesn’t make sense if $465M.<p>I worry that this is Amazon saying “cost is no limit” to a project team instead of artists and creators.