Amazon began with books. That is the small, almost mischievous irony at the heart of this story. A company founded in 1994, whose online bookshop opened in 1995, now brings Middle-earth to television on an extraordinary scale.[1] Yet a definitive book about that undertaking would require an exercise in permissions and cooperation. The road back to paper winds through a country of separate rights. But it remains a road. A magnificent making-of volume for The Rings of Power can, in principle, happen. The public evidence does not support the more dispiriting claim that such a book is forbidden, or that every conceivable edition must pass through one publisher.
What troubles me is the distance between the world we experience and the arrangements through which we receive it. Tolkien gave us a country whose languages and histories seem to continue beyond every visible hill. We encounter its adaptations through separate corporate gates. I want those gates to open towards one another. I want the books honoured, the craftspeople remembered, and the newcomer welcomed without first needing to understand a licensing agreement. To explain the rights mess properly is also to discover how much remains possible.
Remembering how a world became tangible
The Jackson films left behind something I still consider precious: a record of their making substantial enough to become part of the experience. The extended editions and their Appendices invited us into workshops, rehearsal rooms and editing suites. They allowed the viewer to follow an idea through the hands that gave it weight. A door, a costume or a stretch of landscape acquired a second history. We could love the finished illusion and understand the labour beneath it without either affection diminishing.
That generosity matters retrospectively. The further we travel from the trilogy’s original December releases in 2001, 2002 and 2003, the more valuable its production record becomes. A promotional interview answers the needs of a particular week. A sustained documentary can remain useful decades later. Someone finding the films for the first time can discover how they were made, while someone returning after years away can recognise the faces and voices that accompanied an earlier part of life.[2]
The illustrated books offered another kind of permanence. Middle-earth From Script to Screen, credited to Daniel Falconer and K. M. Rice, gathers the work of the Jackson film productions into an extensive physical account. That is the kind of object I hope The Rings of Power eventually receives: a volume one can leave open beside a drawing, return to after an episode, or pass to someone whose interest has only just begun. Paper gives the material a life beyond a streaming interface and its changing arrangements.[3]
There is a human obligation in this, too. Screen fantasy can swallow its makers into the size of its own spectacle. A person spends months solving a problem, and the finished result passes before us in seconds. A thoughtful production history restores proportion. It names the person, follows the rejected attempts and explains why the eventual solution mattered. Looking back, I am grateful that so much of the trilogy’s making remains visible. I want the people building the next Middle-earth to have the same chance of being remembered as individuals whose decisions shaped what we loved.
How the rights became divided
The present situation grew through transactions made over many decades. In 1969 Tolkien sold a substantial package of adaptation and merchandising rights to United Artists while retaining book publishing rights. Saul Zaentz acquired the transferred rights in 1976. The business now known as Middle-earth Enterprises carries that licensing history forward, and Embracer acquired it in 2022. Amazon’s later television agreement belongs to a further chapter, rather than simply replacing everything that came before.[2]
The Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins have different responsibilities. The Estate oversees Tolkien’s literary legacy and rights it retains. HarperCollins holds world publishing rights to his works, with publication taking place through relevant territorial arrangements. The Estate directs requests to reproduce published text and illustrations to HarperCollins. None of that makes HarperCollins the owner of every image ever created for a Tolkien adaptation, or makes the Estate interchangeable with a film studio.[4]
Middle-earth Enterprises describes its business in terms of exclusive worldwide motion-picture, merchandising, stage and other rights in certain Tolkien works, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Its own licensing guidance distinguishes permissions for literary merchandise from requests involving Warner Bros. film clips and stills. A photograph of a screen production, a passage from Tolkien and an original painting therefore need not follow the same route. Combining them in one handsome volume creates a practical clearance exercise.[5]
Amazon announced its multiseason television agreement in November 2017, naming cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema. The Second Age setting should not be mistaken for ownership of every Tolkien text concerning that age. In 2022 the showrunners described their underlying literary rights as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, rather than The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales as complete books. Individual permissions may complicate that outline; the full contracts are not public.[6][7]
This is why the phrase “Amazon owns the Second Age” leads us astray. An age is a span within the fiction, while a licence specifies protected works and permitted uses. Dates on a fictional chronology do not themselves settle the permissions. Equally, the existence of several rights holders does not establish hostility between them. These arrangements have already produced cooperation. The difficulty lies in extending it to the particular project fans want.
Who controls what and who receives the money
This is a practical map of the publicly described arrangements. It cannot supply a universal division of profits, because the relevant commercial terms are private.
|
Party |
Principal role |
What it may receive |
|
Tolkien Estate and Trust |
Literary stewardship and retained rights; party to Amazon’s television agreement. |
Payments under applicable agreements; public statements do not disclose a complete split. |
|
HarperCollins and territorial publishers |
Publication of Tolkien’s writing; permissions for reproducing published material. |
Publishing income under their contracts, after the relevant costs and obligations. |
|
Middle-earth Enterprises |
Licensing specified adaptation, stage, merchandise and related rights in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. |
Licence fees and other contractually agreed income. |
|
Warner Bros. and New Line |
Jackson film productions and associated film permissions; continuing screen projects. |
Film and licensed-product income under project agreements. |
|
Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video |
The Rings of Power production and distribution under its television arrangements. |
Commercial value from the series and authorised exploitation, subject to agreements. |
|
Other licensed publishers and producers |
Particular authorised books, games or products. |
Sales or other income, with contractual payments to the relevant licensors. |
The table describes roles, not equal shares or an exhaustive corporate chart. Nobody outside the agreements can responsibly declare that one company automatically receives a fixed percentage of every Tolkien-related purchase. A novel, cinema ticket and production book can involve different parties and different bargains.[4][5][6]
The making of book that could exist
The strongest version of the pessimistic argument says Amazon must surrender its production archive to HarperCollins, that HarperCollins must publish it, and that the Tolkien Estate must approve it through one mandatory procedure. I have found no public basis for presenting that whole sequence as an established rule. The necessary approvals would depend on the proposed contents and the actual contracts. A publisher’s rights in Tolkien’s texts do not, by themselves, describe every possible licence for photographs, interviews and newly commissioned production artwork.
HarperCollins would certainly be an obvious and experienced partner. Its Tolkien publishing history and illustrated adaptation books make the prospect easy to imagine. It has also already cooperated with the television series through official tie-in editions of The Lord of the Rings. Those editions demonstrate a working relationship. They do not prove that a separate production chronicle has already been licensed, but they make the suggestion of an unbridgeable gulf rather difficult to sustain.[8]
Nor is all authorised Tolkien-related print confined to HarperCollins. Insight Editions lists licensed books and products, including The Lord of the Rings The Definitive Movie Posters. That example does not determine the rights to an Amazon production book. It does establish why we should resist sweeping claims about a single compulsory publisher for every illustrated object connected with Middle-earth.[9]
There is material to build upon, too. Publicly viewable Rings of Power digital craft publications already collect production imagery and accounts of the work. Amazon also released making-of segments for the first season through its X-Ray and bonus-content offering in 2022. The desired archive has beginnings. What I long for is its fuller preservation in a carefully edited hardcover and an enduring documentary collection, with proper credits and enough room for the craftspeople to explain their decisions.[10][11]
Of course, such a project costs money. Someone must commission the writing, select and clear the images, reconcile approvals, manufacture the book and reach readers. Yet we should not invent an executive’s motives and call that explanation. No public evidence establishes that Amazon has dismissed the idea because the profits are too small. We can describe plausible obstacles without pretending to have read the correspondence. The useful question is which partners could make the book worth doing.
My ideal volume would show the development of a place across successive designs, with the artists explaining what changed and why. It would give costume and practical construction room beside the finished effects, and follow a piece of music from its first conception into a scene. I would welcome honest discussion of difficulties, with the patience that publicity seldom permits. A production book becomes more valuable when it allows us to understand decisions rather than merely admire results. Good editing could turn an enormous archive into an intelligible account of people learning how to make their imagined world visible.
One screen history and one welcoming door
My ideal remains a shared screen continuity. I would like The Rings of Power and the Jackson films to feel like earlier and later chambers of the same inhabited world. The series was not established as a canonical prequel within Jackson’s film continuity, however familiar some artistic contributions may feel. Similarity of atmosphere, or the involvement of an artist associated with the films, cannot settle that question. My hope is a proposal for cooperation, rather than a description of an agreement already reached.[7]
Bringing them together would require care. An adaptation’s chronology, character histories and visual decisions can create real incompatibilities. A shared council of writers, filmmakers and Tolkien scholars could identify what genuinely fits, what needs explanation and what should remain an acknowledged variant. I would welcome that patient work. Declaring everything canon in a press release would be easier, but the pleasure would come from earning the connection through the stories themselves.
Tolkien’s books would retain their own authority. A common screen history need not pretend that every invention was written by him, or tidy his developing legendarium into a television reference manual. Viewers deserve clear distinctions between the published text and an adaptation’s additions. Those distinctions can make the experience richer. They invite the curious reader to ask what lies behind a familiar scene, and discover that the page has more to offer than the screen could contain.
There is already encouraging movement towards a common public entrance. LOTR.com now presents an official fan club associated with Middle-earth Enterprises. Its own notices still distinguish third-party film and television properties. That combination is revealing: a recognisable home can exist before all the underlying rights become one. I would love it to develop into a place that helps the whole audience find its way, with contributions agreed across the relevant organisations.[12]
What I would ideally like to see
These are hopes for a coordinated future, rather than announcements of projects or agreements.
|
What I would like |
What would make it possible |
What the audience gains |
|
A shared screen history |
Agreements between the relevant producers and licensors, supported by careful continuity work. |
A convincing road from the Second Age to the Jackson films. |
|
A comprehensive production library |
Cleared archives, credited contributors and an experienced publishing partner. |
Lasting art books, photography and detailed accounts of the craft. |
|
One useful official website |
Shared navigation and editorial cooperation across separate rights holders. |
Clear routes to books, films, television, games and trustworthy background. |
|
Documentaries with room to breathe |
Sustained interviews, workshop access and preservation beyond launch publicity. |
A production record comparable in generosity to the trilogy’s Appendices. |
|
Games that reward curiosity |
Thoughtful licensed development and visible links back to the literature. |
The chance to inhabit a place and then seek its deeper history in print. |
|
Reading at the centre |
Useful editions, reading guides and honest accounts of adaptation changes. |
More people discovering Tolkien in his own words. |
StarWars.com, Avatar.com and HarryPotter.com offer useful examples of recognisable front doors. Their existence does not mean those properties lack complicated contracts or arguments about continuity. It means a visitor has somewhere obvious to begin. Something as foundational as Tolkien’s work deserves that clarity. A child searching after a first viewing, or an adult returning after twenty years, should find books, screen adaptations and reliable context within easy reach.[13]
I imagine opening that site and finding a reading route that starts with The Hobbit, an explanation of the different screen continuities, and a calendar that makes forthcoming releases easy to understand. Each project could retain its own character while helping visitors discover the others. A production archive might sit beside an account of Tolkien’s life, with clear credits and links to appropriate editions. That seems an achievable service for an audience already doing much of this work for itself. The website should help a person spend more time with the stories and less time discovering where the information has been scattered.
New journeys and the return to reading
The coming projects make this more than an abstract wish. Warhorse, the studio behind Kingdom Come Deliverance II, has announced a Middle-earth role-playing game. Embracer’s planned Fellowship Entertainment separation would bring Warhorse and Middle-earth Enterprises into a dedicated listed group, with the proposed listing targeted for 2027. That is an announced plan, not a completed restructuring. It nevertheless gives the conversation about coordination a concrete setting.[14]
I find the Warhorse prospect particularly exciting because a role-playing game can give ordinary life its proper duration. My hope is for paths worth following slowly, settlements whose inhabitants have convincing concerns, and a world in which history affects how people live. Those are wishes, not announced mechanics. Middle-earth has room for adventures that allow a player to care about somewhere before asking them to defend it. A well-made game might send someone back to a map, an appendix or an unopened book.[15]
The announced film Shadow of the Past offers another opportunity. Stephen Colbert is writing with Peter McGee and Philippa Boyens, with Peter Jackson producing; reporting describes a return to material from the opening portion of The Fellowship of the Ring that the films left aside. Its existence encourages me because adaptation can still find value in attending to the text more closely. Whether the finished film earns that promise will depend on its writing and its choices.[16]
Above all, I want these ventures to encourage reading. The best possible outcome is a viewer or player who becomes curious enough to encounter Tolkien’s sentences. There the pacing changes. A song occupies its own time. A name carries a history that cannot be exhausted by a caption. The reader supplies something no production can supply for them: the inward shape of the journey. Commercial coordination would be worthwhile if it helped more people reach that experience.
Inspiration and the courage to make something different
This touches my own work on Quantumyth, although the two worlds are very different. Tolkien’s example encourages me to take an imagined world seriously and to discover what is particular to my own. I think of Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s admiration for Björk, and a distinction preserved in an older compilation of his interviews: “make it an influence and not a Xerox copy.”[17] I hear in that a freedom to learn from another artist’s example, and to become more fully oneself in doing so.
That distinction matters to me. Another artist can give us courage to become more ourselves. Quantumyth does not need to resemble Middle-earth to owe something to the permission Tolkien’s example gives the imagination. I digress, perhaps, but it is also why I care about preserving production histories. Seeing how other people work can help us begin our own work, with gratitude and enough confidence to follow a different road.
A hopeful December ahead
Here is my own prediction, plainly marked as such. I think December 2026, the month of The Fellowship of the Ring’s twenty-fifth anniversary, would be a fitting moment for a substantial teaser for The Hunt for Gollum. That is a hope about the publicity calendar, not an announced trailer date. The film itself is scheduled for 17 December 2027, next December as I write. I would love the anniversary to make the distance between those two Decembers feel like anticipation shared across generations.[18]
We have seen enough cooperation to know that the way is not closed. A television tie-in edition, a new official gathering place and another attempt to bring overlooked pages to the screen are modest signs, but real ones. The companies need not become one company to work more generously together. Their agreements could leave room for a better archive, a clearer welcome and a screen history that feels less scattered. I hope that is where the road leads: towards a future in which every new journey makes the old books easier to find, and more readers open them with the feeling that something wonderful is still ahead.
Sources
1. Amazon, the first office and the company’s beginnings; Amazon’s 1995 bookseller announcement. Founding in 1994 and online retail launch in 1995. Company history · 1995 announcement
2. Middle-earth Enterprises, History. Public chronology of rights transactions and the Jackson trilogy’s releases. Rights chronology
3. HarperCollins Rights, Middle-earth From Script to Screen. Publisher description of the Daniel Falconer and K. M. Rice production compendium. Publisher record
4. The Tolkien Estate, Frequently Asked Questions and Links; Links. Estate guidance on publishing permissions and HarperCollins’ publishing role. Territorial arrangements should be checked with the relevant publisher. Estate guidance · Publishing links
5. Middle-earth Enterprises, Licensing. Describes its licensed-rights business and distinguishes literary merchandise, film-image requests and published-text permissions. This is public guidance, not disclosure of private contracts. Licensing guidance
6. Amazon, 13 November 2017. Announcement of its multiseason television commitment, naming cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line. Original announcement
7. Anthony Breznican and Joanna Robinson, Vanity Fair, 14 February 2022, Ten Burning Questions About Amazon’s The Rings of Power. Showrunner account of the underlying texts and discussion of the series’ relationship to the Jackson films. This is a dated public account, not the complete current licence. Interview and reporting
8. HarperReach, It’s time to return to Middle-earth; The Lord of the Rings television tie-in edition, ISBN 9780008537760. Evidence of cooperation on editions of Tolkien’s original novel. 2022 publishing announcement · Tie-in edition
9. Insight Editions, The Lord of the Rings Tarot Deck and Guide. The publisher’s catalogue identifies The Definitive Movie Posters among its licensed Lord of the Rings books. This establishes another licensed publisher, not a Rings of Power production-book licence. Publisher catalogue
10. The Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power digital craft publications. Publicly viewable production material; cited as evidence of an existing archive, not as retail hardcover editions. Crafts book · Episode and craft publication
11. TheOneRing.net, 21 November 2022, New Rings of Power behind-the-scenes footage released today. Reproduces the announcement of the first season’s making-of material and X-Ray access. Announcement and context
12. LOTR.com official fan club. Site and rights notices consulted 30 October 2026. Its presence does not establish that all screen properties share a continuity or a joint licensing arrangement. Official site
13. Official public portals used as navigation comparisons. No claim is made that their rights or continuity arrangements are identical to Tolkien’s. Star Wars · Avatar · Harry Potter
14. Embracer Group, 20 May 2026. Proposed Fellowship Entertainment spin-off and planned 2027 Nasdaq Stockholm listing. At the article’s date this is a plan, not a completed listing. Corporate announcement
15. Embracer Group Annual Report 2025/26, published 18 June 2026; VGC, 20 May 2026. Confirmation of Warhorse’s Middle-earth RPG. The article’s desired gameplay is explicitly speculative. Annual report · Announcement coverage
16. ABC News, 26 March 2026, Stephen Colbert to co-write new Lord of the Rings film. The announced Shadow of the Past project and its creative participants. No release date is asserted here. Project announcement coverage
17. Influencias Mars Volta, an older interview compilation hosted on Scribd, preserves the short influence and Xerox-copy wording. Its provenance is secondary; the longer remembered wording about Björk could not be verified as a verbatim quotation. Jeremy Robert Johnson’s 2006 Verbicide interview separately documents Bixler-Zavala’s admiration for Björk. Archived compilation · Published 2006 interview
18. Warner Bros., The Hunt for Gollum production announcement, lists 17 December 2027; Variety, 8 May 2025, reports the release date. Hobbiton marks Fellowship’s 25th anniversary in 2026. A December 2026 teaser is Albert Chessa’s prediction, not a studio announcement. Official production video · Release-date reporting · Anniversary
