Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show release date set for September 2022 Amazon Lord of the Rings

• August 2, 2021

The seemingly fablbed Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show finally has a release date: September 2, 2022, according to an official tweet.

The tweet didn’t just have a date– it included a single still frame from the show, of a figure in white on a green hill overlooking a grand white city and, in the background, a sunset illuminating two colossal trees. Tolkien nerds, start your engines. 

While it’s disappointing to hear we’ll have to wait another year for the Lord of the Rings show to air, it fits the timeline we’ve formed from rumors and tips – just last month, series star Benjamin Walker noted that they were still filming at the time. Given the quality of CGI used in the screenshot above, and the reported $465 million budget for the first season alone, it makes sense that Amazon would need months to a year to digitally build in a world worthy of Middle-earth. 

Analysis: Now that’s what I’m Tolkien about

Thanks to the synopsis released back in January, we know that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show will cover the Second Age of Middle-earth when “great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.”

That villain is Sauron, of course, and we’re expecting the show to explore how ‘The Deceiver’ took up the mantle of his old boss Morgoth (enemy of Middle-earth’s First Age) to first oppose the greatest force in the mortal world – the Atlantis-like human kingdom of Númenor – and then be taken prisoner, only to corrupt it from within. 

That’s a bit of a spoiler, though mankind’s paradise-like fall from grace has been in the pages of the Bible-like Silmarillion since it was first published in 1977 – and we see the fallout from this conflict in the opening scenes of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring, when the Last Alliance of Elves and Men bring down Sauron and end the Second Age. 

Back to the new tweet: is this Númenor? Possibly – the structures certainly have the white stone and rounded dome look of Gondor as depicted in Jackson’s trilogy. More tellingly, the two trees in the distance can only be Telperion and Laurelin, the silver and gold trees in the heaven-esque Valinor that light the world day and night – which could be seen from the island of Númenor, which rested between the land of the gods and Middle-earth. 

And the white figure, who gazes on the city and the trees? It could be a Númenorean – perhaps Ar-Pharazôn, the last king who conquered and then was swayed by Sauron – but no, it is probably the Deceiver himself, clad in white to ease his way into men’s hearts. As the Silmarillion reads: “And [Sauron] was crafty, well skilled to gain what he would by subtlety when force might not avail. Therefore he humbled himself before Ar-Pharazôn and smoothed his tongue; and men wondered, for all that he said seemed fair and wise.”

Or, ahem, it could be someone else entirely. But until we get more official news and footage from Amazon, we’re left to speculate on what’s to come in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show.

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The seemingly fablbed Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show finally has a release date: September 2, 2022, according to an official tweet. The tweet didn’t just have a date– it included a single still frame from the show, of a figure in white on a green hill overlooking a grand…