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Sean Astin talks about Amazon’s potential Lord of the Rings TV show

By Patrick Schmidt

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 12: Actors Hoon Lee, Greg Cipes, Rob Paulsen and Sean Astin, executive producers Peter Hastings and Ciro Nieli from Nickelodeon's all new CG-animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, give NY Comic Con attendees insight into the new series, reveal never-before-seen art and show clips and answer fan questions at Jacob Javitz Center on October 12, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 12: Actors Hoon Lee, Greg Cipes, Rob Paulsen and Sean Astin, executive producers Peter Hastings and Ciro Nieli from Nickelodeon's all new CG-animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, give NY Comic Con attendees insight into the new series, reveal never-before-seen art and show clips and answer fan questions at Jacob Javitz Center on October 12, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Nickelodeon) /
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The Lord of the Rings could be coming to Amazon Prime Video as a TV series and one of the stars of the movie trilogy has some thoughts about what he’d like to see in the potential series.

Amazon is committed to rebranding their Original shows on Prime Video and have a mandate from Jeff Bezos to find a show that would have the widespread appeal of Game of Thrones enjoys. That’s a tall task to be sure, but one idea that could be a game-changer for Amazon is a potential Lord of the Rings series.

Amazon is in early talks with J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate about adapting the story for the small screen. It sounds like an ambitious idea and could be a source for a number of new members signing up for Prime. Most importantly, it could be a show for Amazon to put on banners and billboards and promote, unlike anything they’ve had before.

While it’s still far too premature to talk about release dates and casting announcements for a potential Lord of the Rings TV series on Amazon, one of the stars from the trilogy of movies from Peter Jackson knew this was an inevitability.

Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and is arguably the greatest best friend in cinematic history, he saw this reboot coming more than a decade ago because the story is so vast and everyone is in love with the character. Astin was a guest on EW Radio where he talked with host Kyle Anderson about the prospect of a LOTR series and what he’d like to see from it.

"“I saw that the other day, and I thought that was intriguing,” Astin told host Kyle Anderson, via Entertainment Weekly. “I’ve been saying for 15 years that maybe like 12 years after Lord of the Rings came out, that it would get remade. And people always said, ‘Oh no, it’ll never get remade! It’s a classic! They could never top it!’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’ll get remade. It’s a massive story! The characters are so beloved.’”"

Again, it’s far too premature to talk about the show as if it is actually happening, but fingers crossed this adaptation will come to life, and at Amazon. It remains unclear what aspect of Tolkien’s Middle-earth world the series would explore but Astin has some ideas he’d like to see the series explore.

"“The Mines of Moria are referred to a lot in Lord of the Rings,” Astin added. “And I guess in the Hobbit trilogy, you spent a little time with them, but the culture of the dwarves in the mines… I would love to see like five hours of that.”"

Thinking about the prospect of a Lord of the Rings TV series is exciting to be sure and I hope this will become a reality in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, Amazon can make this happen because it would be a massive investment for them and could help them compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu.

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