Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power producer reveals the ‘number one rule’ behind new adaptation

A producer of the new Prime Video Lord of the Rings adaptation The Rings of Power have revealed the “number one rule” they followed making it.

Rings of Power debuts on the streaming service in September, and has already made headlines for its recordbreaking budget.

The series is set centuries before the events of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Executive producer JA Bayona spoke about the series in a new interview with SFX magazine.

“When you read [Lord of the Rings author JRR] Tolkien’s books, you can tell how much he appreciates beauty, so the show is full of beauty,” he explained.

“Tolkien is inherently optimistic, warm and emotional,” he continued. “This is a man who went through some of the darkest things in human history and he didn’t come out of that and write a despairing, awful story.

“[Tolkien] wrote a story about hope, and a little guy succeeding. We always felt that it was rule number one that there needed to be true optimism and love, even in the darkest, scariest moments of the show.”

In a recent interview, Peter Jackson claimed that he “seriously considered” getting hypnosis in order to forget all his work on the Lord of the Rings films.

The filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast that he wanted to wipe his memories of the franchise so he could watch them like a regular fan.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts on Prime Video on 2 September.