Middle Earth will become a reality in a few weeks. The company invested hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the latest Lord of the Rings movie to its streaming service. Few premiere episodes in entertainment history have as much riding on them as this one does. Everyone needs to watch and enjoy it. J.A. Bayona came in.
Bayona has directed a number of films, including The Orphanage, A Monster Calls, and TheImpossible. He talked to io9 earlier this summer about the expectations for the first two episodes of The Rings of Power. The interview can be found below.
The interview has been edited to make it clearer.
When I first watched the show, I was struck by how similar it was to Peter Jackson's films. I wondered if that was on purpose. How did you make that decision?
J.A. Bayona is a big fan of the movies and he appreciates how faithful Peter Jackson was. Going to the source material was more important to me. You can see the size of the series when you read the books. I think it was more reading the books again and trying to portray that on the screen, rather than going to the movies.
I am just reading into that. If you were to binge all of it, it would all fit together.
Bayona thinks that it is the same way that Tolkien used the language. He was inventing characters, languages and worlds. I think it's all about the language. This is what the camera says. Patrick and J.D. wrote beautiful words for me. We tried to bring cinematic elements to the story.
The first two episodes of the series are important because you are setting the tone for the rest of the series. What was it that made it difficult to get in on the ground floor?
Bayona thinks it's a huge endeavor to portray the level of beauty found in the books. I'm happy that Amazon wanted to go there. The bar was so high that we couldn't offer less to the audience. It was to be at the same level of expectation as the people who had read the books and watched the movies.
How did you get on the project? You have been on it a long time. Did you tell your agent to go after it or did they follow you?
Bayona: I remember that I read about the show and I was curious, because television allows you to give space and time to the story and the characters. Patrick and J.D. called my agent to meet me. I knew nothing about it. I was not sure if it was going to be a repeat of the same story but I was pleasantly surprised by what Patrick and J.D. said to me. It was smart and clever to do a Second Age story, but it wasn't specific. It allowed us to create new storylines and characters, but at the same time be faithful to the plan that was already in place.
You are also an executive producer on the show. After you finished directing the first two episodes of the franchise, what happened to the rest of the project?
Bayona focused on the first and second episodes to establish the tone and help Patrick and J.D. design each world. We talked about the first season of the show after we read all the script. We did that.
You had experience jumping into a franchise in the middle and dealing with a lot of expectations, like with the movie "Fallen Kingdom" Were your feelings affected by that experience? Did you have any apprehensions about tackling that kind of expectation?
You can notice the pressure, but you need to rely on your interpretation. I am happy that I was able to do a movie that felt different than the others. I brought my stamp with me. When I met Patrick and J.D., I knew I was at their service. I tried to improve what they were doing by bringing my best to the table.
There are a lot of different characters and different stories in the show. Is there any kind of pockets, characters, or stories that you like to read?
It is a rich and complex universe. You would find the Harfoots if you were going for nature. The Elves are the best place to get more political. When you go to people, there is melodrama. I enjoy working with each of the worlds and it feels very rich and complex. I like movies in all genres. You can pick up some of them in the story, thanks to the world of Tolkien.
It is so cool. Some people are very familiar with this franchise, not just from reading the books for a long time, but also from the films. Do you mean that we want to make this different and stand out?
Bayona thinks that Patrick and J.D. did a good job of showing how rich the characters are. The characters were alive on the page. I felt very protective of those script, and the decision after talking to them and seeing this couple of guys so passionate, so different from each other, I felt protective. I think it was all about that.
Do you think it's helpful for fans to read the books before watching Rings of Power? Fans should concentrate on maximizing the experience.
It would be great if people were interested in reading the books again after watching the show. When they watch the show, they can get even more excited if they read it before the show.
There will be more than one season of this show after the second season. Do you want to direct more episodes?
Bayona said yes. It is easier for me to remember my time in New Zealand now that they are in London.
The Rings of Power is a sequel to The Lord of the Rings.
Do you want to know more about io9. House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, as well as what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, can be found on this page.
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