John D.Payne: Last News

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.

Fantasy on TV was once the preserve of teen-skewing shows like Xena and Hercules, until Game of Thrones made things bigger but bloodier with its blockbuster eight-year run. Now, however, the genre is expanding in unexpected ways, typified by Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power. Where we might have expected another adaptation about obviously good folk fighting clear evil, the show that emerged offers a look at power, obsession and conflict set thousands of years before J.R.R. Tolkien’s foundational text. After Thrones (and its own prequel), it is a coming-of-age for the genre, proof that fantasy is capable of offering subtlety and complexity as well as large-scale adventure.

Outlander star Sam Heughan has revealed that he would love to star in the new Amazon series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

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. 

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power.Speaking to the audience at the UK premiere of the new Amazon Prime Video series on Tuesday (August 30), the Amazon boss confessed that he and his family are massive fans of J.R.R Tolkien’s fantasy novel.“My grandfather’s the one who introduced me to Tolkien,” said Bezos (via Variety). “I fell in love immediately, I was probably 13 or 14 years old.

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.”

EXCLUSIVE: The Hideaway Entertainment has promoted Kristy Grisham to SVP of Development and Production, upping Ryan Cassells to Director of Development and Production, and tapping Jennifer Cox as Creative Executive. The company’s expansion reflects a recent initiative to ramp up their slate by buying and optioning books, screenplays, life rights and other IP in all stages of development.