'The Lord of the Rings' to be most expensive TV series ever made: US media

An upcoming fantasy TV series, Amazon Studios' The Lord of the Rings, will cost about US$465 million for just the first season, making it the most expensive TV series ever made, The Hollywood Reporter, one of U.S. leading entertainment publications, reported on Friday.

The long-awaited TV series, based on the novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, will be produced in New Zealand. It is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth before the events of the Lord of the Rings novel and films.

Amazon acquired the television rights for The Lord of the Rings with a reported US$250 million in 2017.

This is fantastic, it really is ... this will be the largest television series ever made, Stuart Nash, New Zealand Minister for Economic Development and Tourism, was quoted as saying.

By comparison, HBO's fantasy drama TV series Game of Thrones cost roughly US$100 million to produce per season, with its per-episode cost starting at around US$6 million for season one and eventually rising to around US$15 million per episode in season eight, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy based on the novel, including 2001's The Fellowship of the Ring, 2002's The Two Towers and 2003's The Return of the King, made nearly US$3 billion at the global box office.