Amazon reveals its plans to take over the fantasy TV space

When Game of Thrones ends in 2019, there will be a gaping hole left in the world of fantasy television, and studios like Netflix and Amazon will have about a year to fill it before HBO debuts its Age of Heroes prequel series.

By now, you’ve probably already heard that Amazon is putting its money where its very large mouth is and spending upwards of $1 billion to make a show set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe. Details on the series are scarce, but according to new Amazon studio head Jennifer Salke, we now have a few more pieces of information it, and about a few other eyebrow-raising fantasy properties.

Speaking with Deadline, Salke detailed how she’s been preparing for this massive undertaking:

"I’ve sat with Simon Tolkien for a couple of hours, and (Amazon TV executive) Sharon (Tal Yguado) has spent tons of time with [potential writers]. She had spent the last couple of months meeting anyone who had said, I’m really passionate about it and I want to get in and talk about the show and what’s possible. I think you’ll see us honing in on a strategy in the next month, which might involve a group of writers. Clearly, there’ll be someone in charge, but it involves the estate and Peter Jackson, and there’s a lot of conversations."

Speaking of Peter Jackson, he’s said that he will not be directly involved with the series as a showrunner, but is helping pick the creative team. To hear Salke tell it, Amazon is simply having a “conversation with him about how much or how little he would be involved.”

Salke also confirmed, if anyone was wondering, that Amazon is not making multiple Lord of the Rings shows, but rather focusing on “one big series.” Beyond that, she was stingy with the details, declining to say whether the crew would film in New Zealand (“We’ll go where we need to go to make it happen.”) or confirming any plot details. She did, however, hint that things about the show will be familiar to people who’ve watched The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. “I think you can know that we’re not remaking the movies, but we’re also not starting from scratch. So, it’ll be characters you love.” Any characters in particular?

So far as other projects on Amazon’s radar are concerned, Salke said that shows based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series could be on the way. “Those are scripts that I haven’t gotten yet. I’ll be seeing those, that material, in the coming weeks. None of those things are dead. They’re very much alive.”

That’s good news for Wheel of Time fans in particular; adaptations of that series have been in legal limbo for a long time. And with 14 novels to adapt, it could keep viewers watching for a while.

If Amazon wants to seriously compete with HBO after Game of Thrones is over, it will have to have a series ready to go by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020 at the latest. Whether that’s Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, The Dark Tower, or something else entirely, fans will be looking for new content, and Amazon could give it to them. It’ll be interesting to see whether it can beat HBO at its own game, or if the Age of Heroes show will leave Amazon, Netflix and Hulu to fight for second place.

Next: Season 8 filming: Game of Thrones returns to Magheramorne Quarry

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h/t Ani & Izzi