Amazon series

Hollywood Insider has a pretty lengthy article about it. I found this part quite interesting:

Amazon, Netflix and HBO had been approached by the Tolkien estate, who had been shopping the project

and

Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. I hear that there are some creative restrictions imposed by the rights holders on what can be done and what can’t be done in a LOTR TV series.

So given that allegedly the Estate approached others with the TV rights, I assume this was entirely new/separate from previous licensing deals (thus the $250 Million dollar price tag), but I'm curious what type of restrictions/veto powers they retain.