THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RINGS OF POWER Season 2 Manages to Wrap Production Amid Strikes
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 has wrapped shooting amid the writers strike, and it will not be affected by the upcoming SAG-AFTRA strike. According to Variety, Rings of Power finished production "a few weeks back” without its showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay on set because of the strike.
Without the writers and showrunners involved with the production, we can only hope that the creative team left to work on the show will be able to pull off a great second season. Without the writing talent on set helping out, we can only hope that the shooting scripts they were working with were strong.
The Rings of Power Season 2 is set to tell the next chapter of the fantasy epic, and it was previously described as being "feature-film level scope.” I’m a fan of the first season and I was really happy with the story they told and how it played out. I’m excited to see what’s in store for Season 2!
Producer Vernon Sanders previously teased Season 2 saying: “We now get to have the fun of seeing the story ramp up as Sauron is revealed. And I think audiences can look forward to a show that, while it feels true to itself, feels like the stakes are ever higher and now that the rings are in play, seeing what they can do and seeing how the various factions within the world deal with those implications. I think it’s going to be really compelling.”
When talking about the pacing and scope of the upcoming season, he went on to say: “We’ve never done anything like this. So the whole production model, how to produce a show like this, the scale work, all that were things that we needed to learn for the first time in the process of making the show. We are going to be faster. We are going to be able to put more money on screen, just in terms of the scale and scope of what we’re doing now that we know how to do it. And I also think the pace of our story is going to increase in part because the story is demanding that now that everyone’s been established, the stakes are established, that we’re going to watch some characters in some lands go to war.”
He also teased even bigger battle sequences, saying: “Yes, I can say you will see bigger battles in season two including some iconic moments from the appendices and the books.”
McKay went also talked about Sauron saying: "Sauron can now just be Sauron. Like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He's evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he'd overshadow everything else. So the first season is like Batman Begins, and the The Dark Knight is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open. We're really excited. Season two has a canonical story. There may well be viewers who are like, 'This is the story we were hoping to get in season 1!' In season 2, we're giving it to them."
The series is based on the appendices from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of Rings books, and the story is set in the Second Age of Middle-Earth, “thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which 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. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”
The show will run for five seasons.