Amazon Cuts Back on Budget for ‘Rings of Power’ Season 3

Amazon has reportedly reduced the budget aside from filming Rings of Power’s third season. The reason is ballooning costs in certain art departments involved in production.

While the world awaits the second season premiere of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, the news is already surfacing that Amazon has axed the budget for the upcoming third season.

The company had already been under fire from fans, who found the first season lacking despite costing nearly $465 million from an initial estimate of only $100 million to $150 million. Aside from the quality of the finished product, another point of dissatisfaction among fans is Prime Video’s decision to move from New Zealand to the United Kingdom for the second season filming.

It appears that this choice came back to bite the company, as costs seemed significantly higher in the UK than in New Zealand. Many fans consider New Zealand the spiritual home of Middle-Earth after Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot in its entirety there.

This information, which the Fellowship of Fans claimed to be an exclusive reveal, appeared on the group’s official X account. In this post, the Fellowship of Fans said that the production spent more in the UK on hair, makeup, and sound than in New Zealand.

As a result, the company decided to lower its Rings of Power season 3 budget to save money on costs for all departments involved in the series.

Rings of Power’s second season is scheduled to premiere this year, although Prime Video has not confirmed a specific release date. The show is one of the few that managed to complete filming before the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes of last year.

On the other hand, the third season was confirmed to be in pre-production in August of last year. Given this update, it is likely to begin filming once the budget issues have been ironed out and approved.