Rings Of Power: HBO And Netflix Pitched Entirely Different Lord Of The Rings Series

gamerant.com:

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is currently airing its freshman season, but some very different shows could have come out of the woodwork had Amazon not won the rights from the Tolkien Estate. According to reports, one of these shows would have been run by HBO, which wanted to do a reboot of familiar material.

J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium specifies that Middle Earth has not been the same across the ages. The First Age of Middle Earth covers the creation myth of the world, the Second Age covers the coming of Men and the forging of the Rings of Power, and the Third Age covers the dwindling of the magical races and eventually culminates with The Lord of the Rings, which ends as the Fourth Age begins and Man's rise is complete. Eventually, Tolkien intended that Middle Earth become a regular, modern world. The Rings of Power takes place in Middle Earth's Second Age. It covers a period of time which has previously gone unfilmed and untouched by live-action adaptations, allowing for showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne some leeway to make the world their own.

Rings of Power Season 2 Begins Filming Ahead of Season 1 Finale

According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, when the Tolkien Estate (which is famously protective of Tolkien's works) announced that they were entertaining bids for a Lord of the Rings television show back in 2017, it wasn't only Amazon that answered the call. HBO, which was airing Game of Thrones at the time, was interested in making its own show. The Estate did not enjoy their proposal, however, as HBO wanted to remake the Third Age of Middle Earth, and the Estate did not want to retread familiar ground.

Though Tolkien's son, Christopher, had issues with the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film