“Lord of the Rings” star Bernard Hill, who played King Théoden of Rohan in the Peter Jackson trilogy, said he refuses to watch Amazon’s Tolkien spin-off series, “The Rings of Power.”
“It’s a money-making venture and I’m not interested in watching that or being in it,” Hill said in an interview with Metro. “Good luck to them and all that stuff, but it’s not like the real thing,” Hill added, recalling the “wonderful time” he had filming the original trilogy.
New Line Cinema released the three films — “The Fellowship Of The Ring,” “The Two Towers” and “The Return Of The King” — in 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. The third film won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
‘Lord of the Rings’ Actor Bernard Hill Slams #TheRingsOfPower as ‘Money-Making Venture’: ‘Not Interested in Watching It’ https://t.co/tOVo0OSdvy
— Variety (@Variety) November 30, 2022
Hill had no qualms about dismissing the Amazon spin-off. When asked if he had watched the prequel series, which is author J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices and set thousands of years prior to “The Lord of the Rings,” he quickly responded that he was “not interested,” according to Metro.
Hill also said he’d have preferred it if Jackson had stopped with the three “Lord of the Rings” films and not gone on to adapt “The Hobbit,” Tolkien’s first published tale of Middle Earth, into a full trilogy.
“I think they were pushing it when they made ‘The Hobbit,'” he said, describing Tolkien’s 1937 fantasy novel as a “tiny book.”
“They did it well – they did it really, really well. They expanded it [but] I think you can only stretch a piece of elastic so far,” Hill told Metro. “I think they managed it in ‘The Hobbit,’ because there were some really good things in ‘The Hobbit’ without a doubt,”
The three films that comprise Jackson’s “Hobbit” trilogy hit theatres between 2012 and 2014. Despite their box office success, they drew criticism for taking significant liberties with the source material in order to expand a 300-page novel into around eight hours of screen time. (RELATED: Netflix Releases Trailer For ‘That ’90s Show’)
“The Rings of Power” was released on Prime Video in September and drew a huge viewership. The show is rated a 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb, compared with an average rating of 8.9 for the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and 7.7 for the “Hobbit” films.