Amazon head Jeff Bezos is making it decidedly clear that he’s not fucking around with this whole “bring me my own Game Of Thrones” mandate to his TV department. After all, if you can’t get George R.R. Martin on your side, why not go for the granddaddy of all epic fantasies, instead? The wellspring of a million halflings, the source of a forest’s worth of knock-off good-and-evil quests: J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings.
Variety reports that Amazon has entered very early negotiations with Warner Bros. TV and the Tolkien estate—which recently worked out their legal difficulties in a separate settlement—for a possible TV adaptation of the genre-defining classic. Bezos is reportedly personally involved with the deal—an uncharacteristic step for the Amazon CEO—the better to get his hands on that precious IP.
Of course, all of this is made slightly stranger by the fact that few 20th century novels have been adapted as thoroughly, or as successfully, as The Lord Of The Rings, thanks to Peter Jackson and his decade-plus in the wilds of New Zealand. That being said, Jackson’s attempts to condense Tolkien’s tomes into movies with semi-reasonable running times did leave a lot of material on the cutting-room floor (even in the Extended Editions), so this is pretty good news for that one guy you know who was always pissed off that fucking Tom Bombadil never made it onto the screen.