‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Review: Prime Video’s Stunningly Epic Series Is Awe-Inspiring

Andy C is set to become the first drum’n’bass artist to headline The O2 in London – tickets for the show will be available here.The DJ, producer and RAM Records co-founder (real name Andrew Clarke) will host his “ground-breaking” ‘Alive 2.0’ show at the 20,000-capacity venue on Good Friday next year (April 7, 2023).“I can’t believe it… we’re going to The O2 ARENA LONDON!” Clarke wrote on social media to announce the milestone gig, which will be his biggest to date.‘Alive 2.0’ will see the DJ perform a five-hour set featuring a “brand new immersive visual show & production”. The DJ went on to describe the upcoming event as “a true celebration of our amazing music… drum’n’bass”.Clarke continued: “Throughout my career I’ve had the honour to play in places and venues beyond my imagination.

All about Khloé — and her baby boy. The season 2 premiere of The Kardashians revealed new details of Khloé Kardashian’s reaction to Tristan Thompson‘s paternity scandal as she geared up to welcome their second child “without [a] partner.”

Kanye West insisted “men’s voices matter” as he spoke about co-parenting with Kim Kardashian in a new interview with “Good Morning America”.

Olivia Wilde has the seal of approval from Harry Styles’ mom, Anne Twist. The 54-year-old took to Instagram on Wednesday to rave about Wilde’s new film, “Don’t Worry Darling”, which stars her pop star son.

Double the moms, double the support! Sister Wives‘ Mykelti Brown gushed over her mom, Christine Brown, and dad Kody Brown’s fourth wife, Robyn Brown, while preparing to give birth to her first child.

A new romance. Johnny Depp is dating lawyer Joelle Rich, who represented him in his U.K. libel lawsuit against The Sun, Us Weekly can exclusively confirm.

The Bank of England has made the decision to raise interest rates by 0.5 per cent today - bringing rates to their highest level since 2008.

Barcelona forward Memphis Depay has opened up on his future at the Spanish club after being heavily linked with a return to Manchester United.

Rylan Clark has opened up about the reasons for his marriage split for the first time. The BBC Radio 2 host split from husband Dan Neal last year after six years in 2021, with the news coming out amid a four-month break from the spotlight.

Phillip Schofield was quick to apologise to This Morning viewers after a guest broke a golden TV rule while appearing on the show. The presenter was back at the helm of the ITV daytime programme alongside Holly Willoughby on Thursday (September 22).

Elizabeth Chambers is breaking her silence on the House of Hammer documentary.

Marta Balaga LevelK has boarded Icelandic thriller “Natatorium,” directed by Helena Stefánsdóttir Magneudóttir. The film started shooting on Sept. 14, and is expected to bow locally next year. Produced by Sunna Gudnadóttir for Bjarstýn Films, marking the company’s first feature film, it’s financed with the support from the Icelandic Film Center and the Finnish Film Foundation. Scanbox, Sena and RUV YLE are behind the project as well. “I am mostly interested in working on films with female directors and/or scriptwriters, [projects] with high artistic integrity and universal appeal,” says Gudnadóttir, who previously worked on “A White, White Day,” and Iceland’s Oscar submission “Beautiful Beings.” She adds that “Natatorium” has three complex female leads, and 60% of the crew is female as well.

Mike McCahill Guest Contributor The source of this week’s other televised literary adaptation can’t claim the same global reach as “The Lord of the Rings,” but Sally Andrew’s Tannie Maria novels have proven reliable bestsellers in the author’s native South Africa since their 2015 debut. They now provide the basis of “Recipes for Love and Murder,” a South African-Scottish co-production that represents the daffiest addition yet to Acorn TV’s burgeoning portfolio of genial timepassers. To some degree, this is formula fare with a capital F: mild comic, romantic and criminal misadventures in a picturesque setting. Watch enough of it, and you realize even individual scenes have their own formula. Find a cosy location, add light seasonings of plot and piano, and – lest anybody still feel too challenged – serve with a cutesy punchline, typically someone offering to put a kettle on somewhere. From its foundations up, it’s tea-break television.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Compton-based house-music producer-singer Channel Tres has inked a deal that sees him joining RCA Records in partnership with L.A. indie Godmode. The partnership kicks off tonight with the release of the new single “No Limit,” with his debut full-length album “Real Cultural Shit” arriving later this fall. The album will also feature his singles from earlier this year, “Acid in my Blood,” “Ganzfeld Experiment” and “Just Can’t Get Enough.” Channel Tres, who has toured with Robyn, Vince Staples, Disclosure and Toro y Moi and performed at Coachella and New York’s Gov Ball, calls his style of dance music “Compton house”; it meshes the rhythms of Chicago house and Detroit techno with the bite of West Coast rap.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The 17th annual Rome Film Festival will fete James Ivory with a career honor, a mini retrospective and the Italian launch of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s personal new documentary “A Cooler Climate.” Ivory is expected in Rome to receive the award and present the doc about his life as a traveler that takes its cue from boxes of film the director shot during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan in 1960. The film premieres beforehand at the New York Film Festival. Rome’s Ivory mini-retrospective will comprise his films “Maurice”; “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; “The Remains of the Day”; and “A Room With a View.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Columbia Pictures and local developer Amazon Falls have confirmed that their Aquaverse theme park will open in Pattaya, Thailand on Oct 12, 2022. The development is the Sony Group’s first theme and water park and was delayed for roughly a year by the COVID-19 pandemic. With Thai authorities having already dismantled most of their pandemic-era measures and poised to soon drop COVID from its list of notifiable diseases (expected to happen on Oct. 1) multiple large entertainment projects are now rushing to open. Carnival Magic opened in Phuket earlier this week, while another, Bangkok World, is expected to open adjacent to the Siam Amazing Park on the outskirts of the Thai capital on Nov. 25, 2022.

Wilson Chapman editorAlejandro González Iñárritu has released the first trailer for his Netflix Oscar contender “Bardo” — and the entire movie is now 22 minutes shorter.The Mexican filmmaker and two-time best director winner’s eighth film, “Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths),” premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. After screening at Venice and Telluride, Iñárritu went back into the edit room and cut down 22 minutes from the film, bringing its runtime to two hours and 32 minutes, without credits.“The first time I saw my film was with 2,000 people in Venice,” Iñárritu told IndieWire. “That was a nice opportunity to see it and learn about things that could benefit from being tied up a bit, add one scene that never arrived on time, and move the order of one or two things. Little by little, I tightened it, and I am very excited about it.”

It may be nothing more than a simple chocolate biscuit, but there is something special about chocolate Bourbons that make them loved by Brits everywhere.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" has become Amazon Prime Video's most-watched premiere ever. The fantasy television series' debut drew a global audience of more than 25 million viewers, the largest in the streaming platform's 15-year history, according to a report by Deadline on Saturday. "Rings of Power", which is based on J.R.R.Tolkien's classic "The Lord of the Rings" novels, premiered Thursday in 250 countries and territories.

record with 10 million viewers in its premiere last month and boosted its viewership by 2% for its second episode. “The Rings of Power” is led by showrunners and executive producers Payne and Patrick McKay.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the biggest thing Amazon Prime Video has ever done, and it looks like the TV series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing has delivered big time.

The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power just debuted a day ago, and now there’s another reason to want to see season two right away – Círdan!

SPOILER ALERT: This podcast contains details of the first two episodes of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which debuted Thursday night. For more on the epic series, watch Deadline’s Inside The Ring: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power after-show that launches Saturday. 

A new era of Middle-earth! The Rings of Power explores a totally different side of The Lord of the Rings — and fittingly, the cast is full of new faces.

The Rings Of Power showrunners have confirmed the show’s ending will remain faithful to J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material.Based on the appendices to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Rings Of Power covers Middle-earth’s Second Age, from the rise of Sauron, the forging of the rings and the last alliance between Elves and Men.The show has been mapped out for five seasons by showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay, including an endpoint which won’t deviate from Tolkien’s original works.Asked by NME if they have an ending for the show, McKay said: “Yes, if you’re a fan of the lore or a fan of The Lord Of The Rings, then you know that the rings of power… it’s the rings which were scattered across Middle-earth through Elves, Dwarves and mortal Men as Tolkien called them.

finally debuted on Prime Video with the first two episodes of season 1. The prequel series -- adapted from the many stories of J.R.R.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic Several years (and several hundreds of millions of dollars) after Amazon bought the TV rights to “The Lord of the Rings” from the J.R.R. Tolkien estate, the mammoth effort to boost Prime Video’s profile with the same kind of phenomenon HBO found in “Game of Thrones” is upon us — and it’s just as grand, if not as downright surreal, as the occasion calls for. Sure, “Game of Thrones” might have solidified a television format for fantasy epics. But George R.R. Martin’s novels simply wouldn’t exist without Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” and bringing these stories to episodic life requires not just all the considerable money Amazon can provide, but a certain amount of guts from the TV writers taking it on now, some 85 years after “The Hobbit” changed the game. 

global premiere last night — and thanked the showrunners for ignoring his notes on the series.The Amazon founder traveled to London’s Leicester Square for the premiere of the big-budget TV show in a move to establish its importance to the company.Bezos, 58, honored showrunners Patrick McKay and John D. Payne while introducing the first two episodes of the series.“Every showrunner’s dream – and I mean every showrunner – their dream is to get notes on scripts and early cuts from the founder and executive chairman,” the Amazon boss joked. “They loved that.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power descended on London last night (August 30) for the new series’ red carpet world premiere.At London’s historic Leicester Square, nearly 2,000 people – comprising cast, crew, fans and more – attended the Odean Luxe and Cineworld. Among them were all 22 of the series’ cast regulars, including Robert Aramayo (Elrond), Maxim Baldry (Isildur), Morfydd Clark (Galadriel), Sir Lenny Henry (Sadoc Burrows), Ema Horvath (Eärien), Lloyd Owen (Elendil) and Charles Edwards (Celebrimbor).Also in attendance were showrunners J.D.

Jeff Bezos made a surprise appearance at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power global premiere last night, joking about his notes to showrunners and son’s “Don’t f*ck it up” advice as the battle of the tentpole prequels between Amazon Prime Video and HBO’s House of the Dragon hots up.

K.J. Yossman Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (pictured above, left) thanked “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” showrunners Patrick McKay and John D. Payne at the U.K. premiere of the Amazon Prime Video series on Tuesday night – for ignoring his notes on the show. “Every showrunner’s dream – and I mean every showrunner – their dream is to get notes on scripts and early cuts from the founder and executive chairman,” Bezos quipped while introducing the first two episodes of the series at the Odeon Luxe cinema in Leicester Square. “They loved that. I need to thank you both for listening whenever it helped but mostly I need to thank you for ignoring me at exactly the right times.”

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. It’s almost time to travel back to Middle-Earth. Amazon Prime Video’s hotly anticipated new Lord of the Rings series, “The Rings of Power,” arrives on the streamer on Sept. 2. The fantasy series is one of Amazon Studios’ most ambitious projects to date, already breaking records ahead of its release. Not only is it reported to be the most expensive television series ever made (Amazon apparently shelled out close to $715 million for all eight episodes), but the show’s first trailer racked up an unmatched 257 million views when it first debuted at this year’s Super Bowl, more than any Super Bowl trailer in history. Considering the hype, millions can be expected to tune into the new Tolkein adaptation when it finally hits the streamer this week. The first two episodes of “Rings of Power” will arrive on Amazon Prime on Sept. 2 at 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET and will continue to release on a weekly basis until its finale on Oct. 14. The show is available to stream exclusively on Prime Video, meaning you’ll have to sign up for an Amazon Prime account in order to access the episodes. While a subscription costs $14.99/month, you can also sign up for a 30-day free trial to watch the entire “Lord of the Rings” show for free.

Variety interviewed 18 out of the 23 series regulars that star on “The Rings of Power” in order to give readers a primer on both the actors themselves, as well as the characters they will be playing on the series from showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Robert Aramayo had no idea when he first auditioned for “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” that the role he was vying for was Elrond, one of the most revered and crucial characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic saga of Middle-earth. Hugo Weaving played Elrond in Peter Jackson’s trilogies of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” and as a kid, Aramayo had been captivated by the films. So when “The Rings of Power” co-showrunner J.D. Payne told him that he’d been cast to play Elrond as a (relatively) young man, the now 29-year-old actor couldn’t believe it. “I had one of those moments where everything in your body feels like you’re on electricity,” he tells Variety. “I was shocked and surprised and felt really, really honored that they will consider me for him.”

Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” has been a long time coming. “I read ‘The Hobbit’ when I was about 11 years old, and by the time my son got to about that age, we started reading it together as a bedtime story,” Owen, 56 (“You, Me, and the Apocalypse”) told The Post. “Tolkien’s imagination had such a powerful effect on me when I was younger, and I doubled down on reading it with my son. So, it’s been joyous to re-read everything, and then to read everything I didn’t know was out there, properly – ‘The Silmarillion’ and all of Tolkien’s writings.“It’s been a wonderful journey of discovery and it’s very exciting to be part of it.” “The Rings of Power,” premiering Sept. 1, is set around a thousand years before the events of Peter Jackson’s “Rings” movies.

Antonio Ferme editor The battle for the Iron Throne of streaming is about to begin. Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and HBO’s “House of the Dragon” will be airing simultaneously for six consecutive weeks, which many headlines and social media users have dubbed “the biggest battle in TV history.” When asked about the competition between the two shows, “Rings of Power” executive producer Lindsey Weber dismissed the idea that these stories are in conflict with each other. “For us, we don’t feel any of it. It’s totally manufactured by the media for headlines,” Weber said Tuesday night during a “Rings of Power” panel discussion at Film at Lincoln Center. “I’m quite certain that the cast and crew doesn’t feel any of it either. They know how hard it is to make these things.”