Ahead of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Friday (2 September), a premiere event took place in Leicester Square, London last night, in which Amazon’s big man Jeff Bezos made an appearance. As reported by Variety, he revealed that showrunners Patrick McKay and John D. Payne totally ignored a lot of his script notes - something he thanked them for.
Take a look at the trailer for The Rings of Power below.
“Every showrunner’s dream - and I mean every showrunner - their dream is to get notes on scripts and early cuts from the founder and executive chairman,” Bezos said. “They loved that. I need to thank you both for listening whenever it helped but mostly I need to thank you for ignoring me at exactly the right times.”
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He went on to discuss his personal connection to LOTR, explaining that his son (who’s a massive Tolkien fan) specifically instructed him not to “eff this up”.
“My grandfather’s the one who introduced me to Tolkien. I fell in love immediately, I was probably 13 or 14 years old,” Bezos explained. “I fell in love with the adventure of course, with the detailed universe, with the feelings of hope and optimism, with the idea that everybody has a role to play. And I’m happy to report that that cycle continues today.
"My kids have become Tolkien fans as well. In fact one of my boys I think approaches the level of a Tolkien scholar he knows so much about this universe,” he continued. “And after Amazon got involved in this project, my son came up to me one day, he looked me in the eyes, very sincerely, and he said: ‘Dad, please don’t eff this up.’ And he was right. We know that this world is important to so many people, we know it’s a privilege to work inside this world and we know it’s a big responsibility.”
First impressions of the series have been super positive, anyway, so it looks like ignoring Bezos’ notes worked out well for the showrunners.
Topics: The Lord Of The Rings, Amazon, TV And Film