By Joshua Meyer/Aug. 12, 2021 4:20 pm EST
Another factor was that the country has a very strict pandemic lockdown policy. Insiders credit the policy with helping keep the production safe during unprecedented times, but it’s also resulted in certain logistical challenges – especially given that roughly half the cast is from the U.K. For instance, any time a member of the cast or crew left the country they would have to quarantine for 14 days upon returning to New Zealand and there were limits as to how many people could come and go to the production at any given time.
#NotMyMiddle-earth?
Well, first and foremost, it’s a novel told in three volumes by an English author named J.R.R. Tolkien. So “from a certain point of view” (as another wizard, Obi-Wan Kenobi, might say), you could argue that The Lord of the Rings is just coming home to Tolkien’s own native U.K.
This misses the point, however, that the place moviegoers around the world think of as Middle-earth is New Zealand. It’s this country that provided so many of the beautiful landscapes for Jackson’s films. To this day, you can still go there and take a tour of the Hobbiton movie set in Matamata (they even have a “second breakfast” package). A few years back, while highlighting The Fellowship of the Ring as one of his all-time favorite movies, our own Ben Pearson wrote:
The breathtaking landscapes and jaw-dropping scenery of Jackson’s native New Zealand provided the perfect setting for Middle-earth, and when my wife and I visited the country last year (almost entirely because of our love of this series), we found it to be just as awe-inspiring in person as it appears on the screen.
Season 2, at least, will be doing that in the U.K.
