Gaming and filming rights to J.R.R Tolkien projects including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are reportedly up for sale and the rumors suggest that Amazon is leading the race for both.

According to Variety, J.R.R owner Saul Zaentz Co. has hired ACF Investment Bank to orchestrate the sale of its Tolkien holdings. The holdings include; merchandising, live events and theme parks, reports suggest that the cost of the holdings are valued at $2 billion. The Saul Zaentz Co was set up by producer Saul Zaentz who died back in 2017. He was responsible for Oscar-winning films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient.

As stated above, Amazon have an interest in obtaining the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit licenses, Amazon are also set to launch a new Lord of the Rings TV show in September. Currently, Amazon are leading the race to obtain the rights at this time.

It has been put forward that Amazon could have possibly spent over or at least £500 million pounds on the first eight episodes of the upcoming TV adaption; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Interestingly enough, last April, Amazon Game Studios said it had cancelled a Lord of the Rings MMO it was co-developing with Athlon Games, a US subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Leyou Technologies. The cancellation of that project was due to a dispute between Amazon and Tencent  which acquired Leyou in December 2020.

The post Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film and gaming rights up for sale. first appeared on Get2Gaming.

The television adaptation of the beloved PlayStation exclusive series has revealed its first look

Naughty Dog Co-President, Neil Druckmann, who is the creative director and writer of the PlayStation Exclusive series The Last of Us, has shared an image of the set on “The Last of Us Day”.

When I first saw them on set in full costume, I was like: "Hooooooly shit! It's Joel & Ellie! 😭!"

The @HBO adaptation of @Naughty_Dog's The Last of Us is full steam ahead!

Can't wait to show you more (from all of our projects!) Happy #TLoUDay!!! pic.twitter.com/trq9N340FW

— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) September 27, 2021

Druckmann will be a director of HBO’s first series, which is sourced from an updated production list on the Directors Guild of Canada website from earlier this month. There will be five directors working on the series. Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin is listed as one of the directors and is co-writing and executive producing the show alongside Neil Druckmann.

The pilot episode is directed by Kantemir Balagov, who has uploaded a photo on Instagram expressing his gratitude for working on the series. The Last of Us adaptation is the first television series from PlayStation Productions, a studio formed by Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt its original game properties for film and TV.

In this series, Joel Miller is played by Pedro Pascal; he is known for his role as Javier Peña in the Netflix series Narcos. Ellie is played by Bella Ramsey, who is known for playing Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones. Another confirmed character and casting, who is not shown in the shared picture, is Joel’s daughter, Sarah. She is played by Nico Parker, the daughter of actress Thandie Newton, the starring actress of 2019’s Dumbo.

The production, which is set to wrap in June 2022, is expected to cover the events of The Last of Us (2013) and may include content based on The Last of Us Part 2 (2020). Filming is underway in Alberta, Canada, with its streets redesigned to look like the streets of Austin, Texas.

The post First images of The Last Of Us’ upcoming HBO series first appeared on Get2Gaming.