{"id":393709,"date":"2026-04-23T12:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393709\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:28:07","slug":"surprise-rings-of-power-season-3-is-arriving-earlier-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393709\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise! ‘Rings of Power’ Season 3 Is Arriving Earlier Than Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems like all the Lord of the Rings-related news lately has been about the franchise\u2019s big-screen return. Andy Serkis\u2019 The Hunt for Gollum just confirmed some major casting news<\/a>, and no less a Tolkien superfan than Stephen Colbert will be co-writing another new film titled Shadow of the Past<\/a>. But Amazon is here to remind you about its very expensive Rings of Power TV show, which in a surprise move is apparently dropping its third (of five currently planned<\/a>) seasons earlier than expected.<\/p>\n

This report comes from the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> and has yet to be confirmed by the streamer. However, \u201ca source close to the production\u201d told the trade that Rings of Power season three will be arriving later this year, rather than the expected 2027 release date. Season two wrapped up in October 2024.<\/p>\n

Prime Video does have an official synopsis out, at least: \u201cJumping forward several years from the events of season two, season three takes place at the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron, as the Dark Lord seeks to craft the One Ring that will give him the edge he needs to win the war and conquer all Middle-earth at last.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the \u201cseveral years\u201d time gap, Middle-earth\u2019s characters aren\u2019t necessarily beholden to the aging process, and several mainstays (including Charlie Vickers\u2019 Sauron, Morfydd Clark\u2019s Galadriel, and Robert Aramayo\u2019s Elrond) are expected to return.<\/p>\n

New faces playing as-yet unknown characters include Jamie Campbell Bower (yep, Vecna on Stranger Things), along with Eddie Marsan, Andrew Richardson, Zubin Varla, and Adam Young. Frankly, we\u2019re most excited to finally see the One Ring enter the narrative\u2014though given the show\u2019s particular approach to pacing in the past, it\u2019ll probably show up in the season finale.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems like all the Lord of the Rings-related news lately has been about the franchise\u2019s big-screen return.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,16505,130336,61213,437],"class_list":["post-393709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prime-video","tag-rings-of-power","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}