Aston predicted remake
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin isn’t the least surprised by Amazon Prime Video’s news that it will be turning JRR Tolkien’s world into a TV series.
The streaming service confirmed yesterday that it will join forces with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and Warner Bros’ offshoot New Line Cinema to create a multi-season adaptation of the celebrated fantasy novels.
Astin, who played hobbit Samwise Gamgee in the noughties film trilogy, told US radio host Kyle Anderson that he had been saying for 15 years that ‘‘maybe like 12 years after Lord of the Rings came out, that it would get remade’’.
The former Goonies star, currently appearing on the second season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, added that many had disagreed with him, calling it a ‘‘classic’’ they could ‘‘never top’’, but he was unmoved.
‘‘No, it’ll get remade,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s a massive story! The characters are so beloved.’’
Anderson then asked Astin if he would consider reprising his role for the series.
‘‘I’m carrying the Samwise banner for the Peter Jackson version of Lord of the Rings, Astin said.
‘‘When I saw the Amazon thing, that didn’t even occur to me. I just sort of thought, ‘What would it be like to see the next Sam there?’ I think it’s an intriguing idea, but the devil’s in the details. How would they do it? How? Who?’’
He believed the key to doing the series well would be to allow the film-makers to have creative control, a la Stranger Things.
’’I’m sure they were giving script notes, but I never saw ‘em,’’ he said about Netflix.
‘‘The Duffers got to make their movie. And the same was true with New Line and Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
‘‘The challenge would be: could they find some team to do it that they could let to their thing, or are they going to squat on it? It’s hard to make a TV series like this by committee.’’
Astin added that a series would also allow the creators to explore more aspects of Middle Earth.
‘‘The Mines of Moria are referred to a lot in Lord of the Rings,’’ he said.
‘‘And I guess in the Hobbit trilogy, you spent a little time with them, but the culture of the dwarves in the mines, I would love to see like five hours of that.’’