I would caution against inferring too much, at this stage, as to what Amazon has the rights based on linguistic matter. Peter Jackson's movies made liberal use of linguistic material known only from sources outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, too.

Good point to remember, Aelfwine.

I'm still having fun noting down where everything on their map came from, though.

Thanks Jeremy

You can check more about the etymology of the names in the Unfinished Tales, page 253 if I remember correctly (Cristopher's notes section).

Woods near Eldalonde is in Nísimaldar region are the Fragrant Trees. They are not the great woods of Andustar described by Tolkien. Mountains near Meneltarma look similar in height to me as the other mountain ranges. Extra river in Numenor, extra mountain range in Forlindon. Oh well, poetic freedom it is.

Also as I noted on Reddit and Twitter, Tol Morwen is only noted in the below references, from The Silmarillion most specifically.

(Silm, p.230 - Tol Morwen stands alone in the water beyond the new coasts that were made in the days of the wrath of the Valar. and its index listing.

(Vol.4,HoME: The Shaping of ME - The Silmarillion (p. 230) it is said that the stone of the Children of Hurin and the grave of Morwen above Cabed Naeramarth stands on Tol Morwen 'alone in the water beyond the new coasts

(Vol.11,HoME: War of the Jewels - As after indeed befell, and still the Tol Morwen stands alone in the water beyond the new coasts that were made in the days of the wrath of the Valar.

If Amazon are hinting at what they have rights to then they are hinting at having The Silmarillion. Of course it could all be bluster from them to big up the project but we will see.

Although it's entirely possible, the idea of buying the rights to The Silmarillion is riddled with complexity; in the sense that The Silmarillion the book is, broadly speaking, a contraction/redaction of Tolkien's wider legendarium i.e. "the Silmarillion" material more widely. So if someone is proposing to make extensive use of Tolkien's imaginative creation to frame both his stories & new ones, buying the rights to The Silmarillion (book) on its own doesn't really make a great deal of sense; they would be more likely to attempt to acquire full rights to all of Tolkien's Middle-earth material. Of course this deal must also have involved negotiation with Middle-earth Enterprises, since they retain the rights to all the material in H + LotRs. Would be interesting to read about this in more detail.

Getting back to The Silmarillion though; the amounts of money quoted in the media were wonderfully large, so one does start to wonder...

Another thought: Do you think it's possible that they've licensed specific secondary-world lore rather than real-world material i.e. they've not sold book rights but actually sold Middle-earth rights? Is it legally possible that they've sold the rights to whatever Second Age material isn't currently owed/covered by Middle-earth Enterprises?

Middle-earth Enterprises only hold the film rights and certain other rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The rights are limited to Film, stage plays, games, collectibles and toys.

Somebody else may have the actual agreement to hand but iirc the TV rights were never optioned back when the movie rights were sold but were offered as an extra for £5000 within to years and remain at the sole discretion of the Estate. So they can pretty much sell what they want as TV rights.

It is entirely plausible that Amazon have bought the rights to Middle-earth and the $250,000,000 price tag would surely point to a much larger purchase than TV rights to The Lord of the Rings alone.

Ahh, I didn't realise there was such a distinction between "film" & "TV" rights. Some of the original press releases quoted Amazon as stating the "LotRs TV Series" would be produced...

...along with Tolkien Estate and Trust, the book publisher HarperCollins and the film studio New Line Cinema.

Curious that New Line Cinema are still involved. They also stated...

The TV adaptation will cover different ground, focusing on “previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings,” Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins, said in a statement.

The fact that it was stated to be a "LotRs" series still suggests the series will explore events important in the history of the One Ring only.

Khamûl wrote:
Ahh, I didn't realise there was such a distinction between "film" & "TV" rights. Some of the original press releases quoted Amazon as stating the "LotRs TV Series" would be produced...

...along with Tolkien Estate and Trust, the book publisher HarperCollins and the film studio New Line Cinema.

Curious that New Line Cinema are still involved. They also stated...

The TV adaptation will cover different ground, focusing on “previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings,” Matt Galsor, a representative for the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins, said in a statement.

The fact that it was stated to be a "LotRs" series still suggests the series will explore events important in the history of the One Ring only.

That is a fair point about it likely being closely related to the Ring story but also the LoTR mentions may be wise name drops. A TV series called Middle-earth has far more ambition to it imo than The Lord of the Rings. Just my take on that though.

I think the New Line mention rather than ME Enterprises suggests that Amazon wants to retain options for involvement from them. They have so much previous work that could be of use.

I assume with HarperCollins being name-checked that we will see lots of tie in books.

But if it is "Middle-earth" in scope & not just a LotRs adaptation (or history supporting events in LotRs) then why would they not call it a "Middle-earth TV Series"? I mean, the term "Middle-earth", I think, is well understood to mean Tolkien's imaginery universe by the general public. I think it would make sense to reference it as such if this is what it's going to cover. I don't think "LotRs" (what we already have) is that much of a selling point vs. an adaptation of Tolkien's Middle-earth generally (which we haven't seen yet).