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Netflix wanted to turn The Lord of the Rings into the MCU

If the streaming service had got its hands on the rights to The Lord of the Rings, Netflix was going to make an MCU style franchise

Elijah Wood as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a sacred franchise for many, with the original trilogy of adventure movies hailed as some of the best movies of all time. Had the streaming service Netflix won the rights to create content within that world though, we could have had an MCU style franchise, for better or for worse.

Peter Jackson’s trio of 2000s movies are epic examples of the art of storytelling on a large scale, and the Lord of the Rings movies are precious to so many film fans now. There’s probably a good portion of the fanbase who wished the franchise had stopped there, to be honest.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the exact opposite very nearly happened, as Netflix looked to create its own universe of The Lord of the Rings TV series.

“They took the Marvel approach and that completely freaked out the estate,” an insider revealed. The plan was to create various spin-off Netflix series following the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn away from the main timeline.

Now, some people would probably love to be immersed in Middle Earth until the end of time, but the idea of The Lord of the Rings being turned into a conveyor belt of content akin to the roster of Marvel series we get every month, does sound rather heinous.

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Of course, we now have The Rings of Power, a historical drama series telling a story long before the events of Jackson’s fantasy movies. By and large, the show has done enough to satisfy even the most hardcore fans of Tolkein’s work, too.

If you love the idea of Hobbits and powerful jewellery, you’re going to love our list of the best fantasy series of all time.