Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock rose 2.69% on Tuesday, March 20. Shares have surged 32% in 2018 thus far on the back of fourth quarter results that revealed $2 billion in profit. Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has made it clear that he wants the company to stake a claim in online streaming and wants to produce series with “critical acclaim”. The success of Netflix, Inc. has also drawn in other tech giants like Facebook Inc.
In the fall of 2017 Amazon acquired the rights to The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy saga by J.R.R Tolkien. The purchase cost Amazon $250 million. Most readers will be well aware of the film trilogy that was released last decade. All three scored over $300 million in the domestic box office and over $850 million worldwide, with the final installment surpassing $1.1 billion globally. The Hobbit trilogy that followed in this decade saw each film rake in over $950 million worldwide.
The success of the HBO television series Game of Thrones has some analysts convinced that a LOTR series will net similar success. Reuters has now reported that Amazon will spend another $250 million to produce the series, which would make it the most expensive television series ever produced by a wide margin. As a comparison, Variety reported that the final six episodes of Game of Thrones would cost $15 million per episode.
The LOTR series is expected to span for two seasons. It remains to be seen whether audiences will be eager to revisit the series in droves as they did during the box office run for the original trilogy.
