Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series has added a new member to its fellowship: J.A. Bayona, of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom fame, will direct the first two episodes for the upcoming series.
It’ll be quite some time before Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings television series graces our TV screens with all its high fantasy, big budget wonder, but the show has slowly been building up its fellowship of writers and directors responsible for bring the story to life.
The Lord of the Rings television series will take place prior to the big screen movies directed by Peter Jackson, with JD Payne and Patrick McKay currently acting as lead writers on the project. Rumored to be joining them in the writers room is Breaking Bad scribe Gennifer Hutchison and Bryan Cogman, known for his extensive work on Game Of Thrones.
And now the team has their first director for the high fantasy epic.
Deadline revealed earlier this morning that J.A. Bayona has been tapped to direct the first two episodes.
J.A. Bayona reacted to the news on Twitter, saying:
J.R.R. Tolkien created one of the most extraordinary and inspiring stories of all time. I can’t wait to take audiences around the world to Middle-earth and have them discover the wonders of the Second Age, with a never before seen story.https://t.co/imSFOSh5MJ
Article Continues Below— JA Bayona (@FilmBayona) July 3, 2019
While J.A. Bayona is perhaps most widely known for his sci-fi blockbuster Jurassic World: Fallen World, his best films to date are the Guillermo del Toro produced horror thriller The Orphanage — which received a ten-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival — and the criminally underrated dark fantasy A Monster Calls, which went on to win Bayona the Goya Award for best director.
He’s likewise no stranger to working in TV, as he was responsible for directing the first two episodes of the horror fantasy show Penny Dreadful for Showtime.
Head writers Payne and McKay welcome Bayona to the team, saying that they are:
“…thrilled to have J.A. and Belen [Bayona’s producing partner] joining the fellowship as we continue to develop this epic series. We have been great admirers of J.A.’s work for years, and know that his epic, cinematic, and deeply heartfelt aesthetic is the perfect sensibility to bring Middle-earth to life anew.”
No official word yet on when the series might premiere, but we do know that The Lord of the Rings series has a multi-season commitment to Amazon Studies in what was a blockbuster nine-figure rights deal with the Tolkien estate, so expect to hear much more news on this series going forward!
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