'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' Season 2 Officially Underway

Hot off the heels of the show topping the Nielsen Streaming Video on Demand charts, "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" has officially kicked off its production for Season 2.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, filming has begun for the show's second season as of Monday, October 3 at Bray Studios outside of London, England. As reported by Deadline, the show had already received an early Season 2 renewal ahead of the show's launch way back in 2019.

The massively budgeted series was a gigantic gamble by Amazon Prime Video that thus far appears to be paying off. THR reports that following its September 1 premiere in the United States, the show managed to gain 1.25 billion minutes of viewing time. It was the only show to top a billion minutes for the week. The show also outdrew HBO's "House of the Dragon" among streaming users for that week.

The show was among some of Prime Video's best openings ever for its streaming lineup and also the first one to ever rank No. 1 overall on the Nielsen SVOD chart. However, it was still not able to surpass the viewing time of Amazon Prime Video's "Reacher," which drew 1.84 billion minutes of viewing time for its opening weekend in February 2022.

One caveat is that all eight episodes of "Reacher" debuted at once, so it had about six-and-a-half hours of content at launch. Meanwhile, "The Rings of Power" debuted with only two episodes at launch, with the other episodes released weekly. That means by the opening weekend numbers, "The Rings of Power" had about 9.5 million viewers for its first two episodes (viewing minutes divided by runtime). That is more than double the average of 4.7 million viewers per episode for the first season of "Reacher."

"The Rings of Power" had its first season shot on location in New Zealand over 18 months during an ongoing global pandemic. THR notes that Amazon is opting to move the production to the United Kingdom for Season 2 for economic reasons. It's also where Amazon established a multi-show hub.

Amazon previously acquired the rights for the streaming television series from the Tolkien Estate for a reported $250 million. As reported by Deadline, the show's first season is said to have a budget of $465 million. That's a total cost of $715 million for one season of television.

Season 2 is expected to introduce a new character, Círdan, one of the oldest and wisest of all the elves, to the cast. The role has reportedly not yet been cast. The series also stars Morfydd Clark, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Benjamin Walker, Maxim Baldry, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, and more. The series adapts author J.R.R. Tolkien's epic saga of Middle-earth during its fabled Second Age. A group of heroes comes together to fight Sauron, the lord of darkness and evil, who has returned to Middle-earth.

"The Rings of Power" will air its penultimate seventh episode later this week (October 6). The show's first season finale will premiere on Thursday, October 13.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.