Sumith Prasad
Amazon Prime Video has renewed ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ for a third season. Although the streaming giant hasn’t officially announced the same, the third installment is currently in active development with production slated to start in England on an unrevealed date. Hertfordshire, a non-metropolitan county in southern England, will host the production of the season. The historical series revolves around the major events of Middle-earth’s Second Age: “the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the island kingdom of Númenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men.”
The production of the third installment in Hertfordshire may only start after the conclusion of the ongoing WGA strike. The second round of the period drama was also filmed in the English county, specifically at Bovingdon Airfield, a former Royal Air Force airfield. ‘House of the Dragon,’ ‘The Crown,’ ‘Band of Brothers,’ ‘Bridgerton,’ ‘The Sandman,’ ‘Harry Potter’ films, etc. are some of the popular projects filmed in the county. The ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike may affect the production of season 3 despite the majority of the main cast members being either British or Australian.
The third season of the series has been in development at Prime Video since late 2022. An official announcement regarding the same was then postponed due to the production of the second season. “[…] we’re probably two to three months in on Season 3 but I think there could be news certainly in the new year. There’s so much planning and prep that’s necessary for us to get this mounted that the only reason we probably haven’t gotten there quite yet is we’ve just been so heads down in Season 2, but I would expect there to be news in the new year,” Vernon Sanders, Head of Global TV for Amazon Studios, told Deadline.
The production of the sophomore round of the show wrapped up in June 2023 after mainly filming in Bray Film Studios and other locations in the United Kingdom and the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago and autonomous community off the coast of northwestern Africa. The second season is scheduled to be released sometime in 2024.
John D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who developed the series based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s eponymous books, are set to return to the third season as showrunners. The screenwriting duo was unofficially involved in ‘Star Trek Beyond,’ ‘Godzilla vs. Kong,’ and Dwayne Johnson-starrer ‘Jungle Cruise.’ Payne and McKay also serve as executive producers of the show.
Prime Video hasn’t released a statement regarding the cast of the upcoming third round. Morfydd Clark (Galadriel), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Míriel), Robert Aramayo (Elrond), Owain Arthur (Durin IV), Maxim Baldry (Isildur), Nazanin Boniadi (Bronwyn), Ismael Cruz Córdova (Arondir), Charles Edwards (Celebrimbor), and many more are confirmed to feature in the second season. The new faces who joined the second season cast include Ciarán Hinds, Rory Kinnear, Tanya Moodie, Gabriel Akuwudike, Yasen “Zates” Atour, Ben Daniels, Amelia Kenworthy, and Nia Towle. Nicholas Woodeson, Oliver Alvin-Wilson, Stuart Bowman, Calam Lynch, William Chubb, Kevin Eldon, etc. are also part of the new cast members. Sam Hazeldine replaces Joseph Mawle to play Adar as well.
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