“Amazon’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to Cost $465M for Just One Season”
—The Hollywood Reporter
Series is set in the impossibly posh, gentrifying Upper-earth.
Bulk of budget devoted to keeping Aragorn looking as wet as possible at all times.
Smeagol requires $1 million worth of daily B12 and iron supplements just to remain sentient.
The elves threatened to unionize, so Amazon fired them and replaced them with autonomous, silicon androids. Their eyes don’t sparkle and they can only emit ear-splitting screeches, but they don’t complain about working 22 hours a day.
All lembas bread is now organic, vegan, gluten-free, Fair Trade, and personally prepared by David Chang.
To save the design team several months of work, a Type A intern traversed the bowels of Mordor, captured the dragon Smaug, and delivered him to the goddamn studio lot. The intern was fired and has filed a lawsuit seeking millions in compensation for psychological distress and scorched khakis.
Cast and crew of hundreds are weirdly unwilling to work for “exposure.”
Contract rider for Durin’s Bane—the hulking, gargantuan demon who dragged Gandalf to the abyss—calls for the annexation of nearby Rangitoto Island, so he can rule a couple thousand people to relieve stress.
In lieu of hobbit holes, hobbits will live in overpriced, subterranean condos with sleek cryotherapy chambers that are colder than a Nazgul’s faceless gaze.
Showrunners will commute back and forth from LA to New Zealand every day.
The exorbitant price of stilts, prosthetics, and silk wigs that allows Jeff Bezos to play Gandalf and shout, “You shall not pass a wealth tax!” in a totally innocuous cameo.
Had to special-order titanium-coated recording equipment that can withstand fires of Mount Doom, hotness of perpetually wet Aragorn.
It costs roughly $50 million to digitally remove the thousands of crow’s feet from Saruman’s face. The cost of removing the hundreds of literal crow’s feet Saruman sneaks onto set and throws at assistants while they're on their phones, though, is more emotional.
Series will pay for itself after crazy merch sales generated by Baby Yoda knockoff, Baby Legolas.
A couple effects engineers got drunk one night and carved giant butts into the side of Mount Ngauruhoe, so producers had to orchestrate a scene in which a pair of Ents sit on the side of the mountain and accidentally leave imprints of their 1,000-year-old asses.
Shelob the giant spider insists on a cavernous trailer, some freshly webbed sound guys for lunch, and one Peloton for each of his eight legs.
Show’s budget would actually be $850 million if not for the trolls being forced to work weekends as Amazon Prime delivery drivers, then donate their wages to the show.
Bezos brilliantly noticed that the word “Orc” rhymes with “dork” and thought it would be hilarious to adorn the Orcs with thick-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors. Amazon then had to spend an extra $300 million developing a second prequel series that explains how Orcs discovered optometry. Another example of Jeff being a practical boss with realistic expectations.
Buying the intellectual property rights to everyone’s favorite Game of Thrones hero: King Bran.
Perpetually wet Aragorn has already caused several costly electrical fires. That’s showbiz, baby!