So the point was specifically how THIS series came about and the fact that it starts with the Tolkien Estate itself. It is about THEM making money from whatever rights were left over and not about any other entity who already owns any other rights, which was the Saul Zaence corporation, who hasn't made any films since LOTR and the Hobbit. And now those rights were sold, because it is risky to make new movies with no actual books that audiences are familiar with to go by.
Anyway, you obviously aren't interested in discussing that so lets just move along.....
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I don't know and that really wasn't the point. Do you think spending $1 billion dollars is worth it for 25 million viewers? Amazon only knows the actual facts and the point stands regardless. People sitting here trying to argue that somehow the financials of this series makes sense just to justify its existence is kind of silly. The only way to justify that is to show how Amazon is getting a return on that investment and I would assume that means new subcribers to Amazon prime. I don't know how on earth they are even going to make money on a $1 billion series regardless if it is based on Tolkien or something else. It is financial suicide in my book. And we are only talking about 1 season so far costing upwards of $1 billion dollars.
At the end of the day this is all about whether any studio can take the notes and sketches and make something around the edges of LOTR and the Hobbit that can guarantee a large profit either in film or television. Because producing either one is going to be expensive and the risk of doing it comes from the lack of complete books with well known characters to fall back on. And no matter what, because of the fame and popularity of Tolkien and his prestige as a writer and author, anything they produce is going to be compared against him and his work.