Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Lord of the Rings series drops stunning trailer at Comic-Con

Dan Girolamo
By

Ever since Amazon bought the television rights to The Lord of the Rings in 2017, the upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been the equivalent of a sleeping giant. The massive show is coming soon, but many details around the plot and footage have been scarce, to say the least. That was the case until now, as Prime Video just released a stunning trailer at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con.

The three-minute trailer is the longest look at the series to date as Amazon had only released teaser trailers up until this point. The footage includes jaw-dropping visuals of Middle-earth to go along with familiar creatures from the film series such as elves, orcs, and dwarves. Based on the works of  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Rings of Power is set thousands of years before the events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The series covers significant events in Middle-earth during the Second Age, which includes the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron and the forging of the Rings of Power.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - SDCC Trailer

The Rings of Power is led by an ensemble cast that includes Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Míriel, Robert Aramayo as Elrond, and Nazanin Boniadi as Bronwyn. Also starring in the ensemble are Owain Arthur, Charlie Vickers, Benjamin Walker, Sophia Nomvete, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Tyroe Muhafidin, Maxim Baldry, Daniel Wayman, Charles Edwards, and Markella Kavenagh.

Recommended Videos

J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay developed The Rings of Power, and J.A. Bayona, best known for directing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, will direct the first two episodes. Amazon will reportedly spend around $450 million on the first season alone, and with five potential seasons in development, The Rings of Power would be the most expensive television show ever made if it surpasses $1 billion.

Galadriel putting a helmet on top of a pile in a scene from Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video on September 2.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Dan Girolamo
Dan Girolamo
Entertainment Writer
Dan is a passionate and multitalented content creator with experience in pop culture, entertainment, and sports. Throughout…
Why Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power can’t be a Game of Thrones rip-off
Morfydd Clark in The Rings of Power.

Even before Game of Thrones went off the air, there was rampant and wild speculation about which show might emerge that could replace it. Game of Thrones was, according to some, the end of an era where TV fans would all watch the same show and then spend the following week discussing the latest episode and speculating about what was to come. Recently, House of the Dragon has attempted to prove that Game of Thrones can be an heir to itself, but another show that has also entered the fray hopes to become something of a phenomenon.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has often been described as Amazon's version of Thrones. The company has invested enormous sums of money into the show, and it's set in a similar fantasy universe as Thrones, with flying creatures and human actors wearing bad white wigs. George R.R. Martin, the mind behind Game of Thrones, was a huge J.R. Tolkien fan, and wrote his own fantasy series essentially in response to Tolkien's totemic works. That's part of the reason why, whatever Rings of Power turns out to be, it has to be more than just a riff on Game of Thrones, even though its source material was created long before anybody sat on the Iron Throne.
Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are not the same thing

Read more
Hobbits and the twin towers: how The Lord of the Rings helped get us through 9/11
Sean Astin and Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings

When tentative news began to leak, pre-Y2K, that Kiwi director Peter Jackson was making a live-action Lord of the Rings trilogy, legions of longtime LOTR fans (including me -- at age 8, The Hobbit was the first novel I finished) were excited, but our enthusiasm was tempered. For one thing, the casting seemed hard to envision (Sean Astin ... the kid from The Goonies? Who the heck is Viggo Mortensen?), and some of us still remembered Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated Lord of the Rings, which, while cool to see as a kid, was far from a cinematic classic.

J.R.R. Tolkien's original novels (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), with their vast and intricate worldbuilding, epic battles, and profusion of wild creatures, had long been deemed unfilmable as live action as they were thought to be too expensive and too technically difficult. So, as news of the production unfolded across the dawn of a new century, we looked forward to the movies while accepting that this Jackson guy (whoever he was) might not pull them off, despite the new and fast-evolving digital tools he and his collaborators had at their disposal.

Read more
The Rings of Power: what you should know about Middle-earth before watching
Galadriel strokes the face of a man in The Rings of Power.

The battle for Middle-earth draws near with the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Set long before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, this new series will depict Middle-earth's war with the Dark Lord Sauron during the Second Age and the forging of the titular Rings of Power. This show will be the first big Hollywood adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's acclaimed series of novels since director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014.

Tolkien's fantasy world is rich with history and characters that have made it the beloved epic it is today. Though Jackson set a high standard for adapting Middle-earth for live-action with his original Lord of the Rings trilogy, the show creators seem to have done their homework in developing this highly anticipated series. There are plenty of important details about Middle-earth that audiences should be aware of going into this new series. For those who feel they need to refresh themselves on Tolkien's novels before watching this show, here's the gist of what audiences will and could see.
Sauron

Read more