On a mild evening in late August 2,000 people gathered in Leicester Square for the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It wasn’t the writers, producers or actors, however, who welcomed guests. Instead, the opening remarks were delivered by the American billionaire Jeff Bezos.
The Amazon founder rarely appears in public, but he is a proud Tolkienist and it is Amazon’s Prime Video that has produced, distributed and bankrolled the series. Set in the “Second Age” of JRR Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth, The Rings of Power is the most expensive television series in history, with a budget rumoured to be around $700m, a third of which was spent on the rights alone. In the first 24 hours of its release the series attracted 25 million viewers globally, a record for an Amazon Prime show.
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