15 reasons Amazon’s Lord of the Rings will be the next Game of Thrones
By Corey Smith
6. We’ll need something to watch when Thrones is over, and Amazon’s show will come along at exactly the right time
In the realm of television, fantasy or otherwise, Game of Thrones is king. And while some subscribe to the theory that to “be the man you have to beat the man,” Amazon is going to operate on the lesser known variant: “wait until the man retires.”
Sometime in 2019, Game of Thrones is going to end, and while there are other contenders out there, Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series could easily slide into the void it leaves behind. While Tolkien’s work doesn’t have the soap opera aspects Thrones does, there are enough similarities to get fans excited, among them dragons and a densely imagined world with medieval trappings. And with Thrones fever still hanging in the air, Amazon may play on that by amping up the political intrigue, purposefully given people still mourning the loss of their favorite show a reason to watch this new one.
It won’t happen by itself. Amazon will have to make the show good, obviously, but if its take on Lord of the Rings comes out in 2020 or so, it will be well-timed to fill the hole Thrones leaves behind.