Young British actor Will Poulter (the Maze Runner franchise) is poised to star on Amazon Studios’ high-profile The Lord of the Rings TV series, Deadline has learned. Amazon would not comment.
The series hails from writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay and director Juan Antonio (J.A.) Bayona. Set in Middle-earth, it will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
Amazon cast a wide net in its talent search for the big-budget project, reading actors around the world with casting directors in the US, UK and Australia. Deadline reported in July that young Australian actress Markella Kavenagh had been cast.
No details about the characters are being revealed but it is believed that Poulter and Kavenagh play the two leads, referred to as Beldor and Tyra, respectively.
The Lord of the Rings series is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which produced the 2000s Peter Jackson trilogy.
Poulter, whose casting was first reported by Variety, is coming off lead roles in Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and horror film Midsommar. His other feature credits include the role of Gally in The Maze Runner franchise, as well as Detroit and The Revenant.
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