Which epic fantasy show will emerge triumphant in 2022?

The Lord of the Rings on Amazon

Amazon spent a lot of money on The Wheel of Time, but it’s nothing compared to this other pet project of Mr. Bezos. The company made headlines when it spent $250 million just to get the rights to make the show, and then another $250 million to make the first couple of seasons. This is the biggest of big swings, using the most popular name in fantasy. Even if you can’t tell a hobbit from a orc, you’ve heard of The Lord of the Rings.

That said, this won’t be the tale people are familiar with. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show is set thousands of years before Frodo or Aragorn or any of those guys were born, during the Second Age of Middle-earth. Sauron is still around, rising on his own for the first time after the fall of his master Morgoth and causing all kinds of trouble for the elves and men of Middle-earth.

That said, the first image released from the show, above, makes it looks like it takes place even further back, so we’re not sure what exactly what Amazon is playing it. It’s exciting, though, especially for longtime fans who want to see the more obscure parts of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium brought to the screen.

The Lord of the Rings will premiere on Amazon Prime Video in September of 2022. We’ll see if it’s as spectacular as Amazon wants it to be.

And keep in mind, this is not a complete list of the big-time fantasy shows on the way. HBO has the third season of His Dark Materials coming up. Netflix is mounting a live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Starz is marching forward with a seventh season of Outlander. And if you tire of pure fantasy, splashy historical shows can also scratch that itch, like the final season of The Last Kingdom or Netflix’s Vikings sequel Vikings: Valhalla.

And we haven’t even touched science fiction shows, from Stranger Things to Foundation to about a million Star Wars and Star Trek shows, not to mention whatever The Sandman is. The genre revolution is here, and as long as these shows find audiences, it’ll hopefully be here to stay.

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