Sean Astin: New Lord of the Rings show will be “amazing”
By Dan Selcke
Amazon is currently hard at work on its massive expensive Lord of the Rings show, set during the Second Age of Middle-earth. Naturally, this has people thinking about the last time The Lord of the Rings was making waves in pop culture, back when Peter Jackson’s movies were blowing up in the early 2000s (yes, The Hobbit movies happened after that but I’m still angry over how bad they were so we’re not talking about them). Speaking to Coming Soon, original cast member Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee) said that he was “very excited” to see how the show turns out.
"I think Amazon was great to do it. I fully predicted in 2002, that it would be in 2020, 2021, that they would reboot it. I was specific about it and people asked how it could be so sure, and I said, ‘Because I have that foresight.’ No, because I know in a generation, people want to experience what they love again. I’ve always been a big one to support sequels and remakes and particularly of classics. A lot of people think, why would you want to remake a classic? The good news is the classic will always remain. So maybe somebody will do something interesting, and if it stinks, don’t watch it. But I have every expectation that this Lord of the Rings adaptation is going to be amazing. It’s been a long time in the making, really talented people working on it, and it only helps people remember 20 years ago when we brought out our version of Lord of the Rings. So it’s good for everyone when stuff like that happens. I think that’s my personal opinion."
Just to clarify, the Amazon show isn’t an adaptation of the original Lord of the Rings story, but a new thing set thousands of years before that tale, although we still don’t know many specifics. “If they’re digging a lot into The Silmarillion, it might be new information to me,” Astin mused, referencing J.R.R. Tolkien’s prehistory of Middle-earth. “I have not quite made it through The Silmarillion.”
Is the show adapting The Silmarillion? Maybe a little; here’s what we’ve pieced together.
The Lord of the Rings showrunners are absolutely committed to the show
As for when we’ll get to watch the show, it’ll premiere sometime in 2022, but we don’t know when. “It is a bit nebulous at this point,” cast member Benjamin Walker told Collider. “We’ve been here a long time and they’ll let us go when they’re done with us.”
Although he didn’t say what it is, Walker said he has a “large” role, which means he could be tied to the series for years if it’s a success. That was a little concerning but was an opportunity he didn’t think he could pass up. “[I]t was kind of one of those where if you say no you might regret it for the rest of your life,” he said. “It comes out and you go, ‘I could have been doing that?’”
Also of interest: showrunner J.D. Payne pitched the role to Walker over the phone while Payne was in the hospital with his wife, who was giving birth to their child. “He’s got the level of commitment you’re going to need to get this show to be where it should be,” Walker said. “It would be a huge mistake to not take part.”
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