The holiday season is upon us, so it’s time to start looking into some of the year’s best book releases to give to your loved ones. This year sees many selections to choose from for fans of properties like Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, Dracula, and Frankenstein and authors like Anne Rice and J.R.R. Tolkien; tie-ins for Die Hard, Planet Of The Apes, The Walking Dead,, and Stranger Things, as well as titles by authors like Raymond E. Feist, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Grady Hendrix, and R.A. Salvatore.

Check out here below our Holiday Geek Gift Guide 2018 for Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks for our favorite holiday gift picks for this year for the reader in your life.

Well this is just getting insane. Less than one month ago came word that the first seasons of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings would cost more than all three movies in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy. Around $500 million.

But that’s just the beginning of the craziness. Amazon’s adaptation is going to cost hundreds of millions more than Jackson’s trilogy. In fact, it’s expected that once all the costs of producing the show are factored in—including casting, producers, visual effects, and so on—the price tag will be over $1 billion. BILLION. For a television show. It’s going to be the biggest TV series ever produced in terms of price tag.

Last November came confirmation that Amazon had landed the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s book series The Lord of the Rings, and that they were committed to producing multiple seasons.

While the news was exciting the announcement also came with the astonishing revelation that Amazon had reportedly paid around $250 million just for the rights, leaving many to wonder just how massive the show’s price tag would be once they got around to actually making it. Now we have a better idea of what that is. A new report indicates that the overall budget of the first couple of seasons of the show will likely surpass the total cost of Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

A little over a month ago it was confirmed that Amazon Studios was committed to making a multi-season TV series adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings.

We’re a long way from casting on that show to begin, but one familiar name sounds ready to sign on: none other than Ian McKellen. The actor has played Gandalf in director Peter Jackson’s two massive movie trilogies, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. When asked about Amazon’s show recently, it sounded like McKellen might just be up for reprising his role as the great wizard in the series…if he were asked to. See what he had to say below.

Earlier this month it was reported that Amazon was in talks with Warner Bros. Television and the estate of author J.R.R. Tolkien for the rights to adapt The Lord of the Rings into a TV series.

As it turns out, things were farther along than we thought. Amazon has confirmed that they have now reached a deal, and are officially committed to not just one single season of a Lord of the Rings TV series, but a multi-season adaptation of the timeless fantasy books Tolkien penned. But it won’t just be a new take on the story we saw play out in Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy. Instead, the series will focus on new storylines which take place before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring. And there’s even an added bonus to the deal that could mean an eventual spinoff series as well.

Continue reading for more on the announcement.