Jeff Bezos' son had a simple directive for his dad when he found out that Amazon was making its own "Lord of the Rings" show: "Don't eff this up."
The founder of the ecommerce giant and second richest man on earth shared his son's warning at the U.K. premiere of the new Amazon Prime Video series "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power".
The 58-year-old billionaire reflected on his lifelong fandom of the work of author J. R. R. Tolkien in front of the A-list audience, Variety reports, saying he passed his love of Middle Earth down to his own children.
After Amazon got involved in this project, my son came up to me one day, he looked me in the eyes, very sincerely, and he said: 'Dad, please don't eff this up.'Jeff Bezos
When one of his sons learned that Amazon had plans to create a "Lord of the Rings" series — reportedly paying an eye-watering $250 million for the rights alone — he asked Bezos to make sure it was good.
"After Amazon got involved in this project, my son came up to me one day, he looked me in the eyes, very sincerely, and he said: 'Dad, please don't eff this up,'" Bezos said. "And he was right. We know that this world is important to so many people, we know it's a privilege to work inside this world and we know it's a big responsibility."
Bezos joked that showrunners Patrick McKay and John D. Payne lived up to to the task in part by ignoring the notes and feedback he gave during the production of the show's first season.
"Every showrunner's dream – and I mean every showrunner – their dream is to get notes on scripts and early cuts from the founder and executive chairman," Bezos said. "They loved that. I need to thank you both for listening whenever it helped but mostly I need to thank you for ignoring me at exactly the right times."
Bezos famously laid out the ingredients for "a great show" in a meeting written about by author Brad Stone in his book "Amazon Unbound".
Among the 12 key elements identified by the then-CEO are "a heroic protagonist who experiences growth and change", "wish fulfillment", cliffhangers and "civilizational high stakes".
"The Rings of Power" is set thousands of years before the events of the "Lord of the Rings" books and films, and chronicles the "re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth."
The first season reportedly cost $715 million to produce.
The series will premiere its first two episodes on Prime Video on Sept. 2, with the following six episodes airing weekly. The showrunners said in June that the story will take place over the course of five seasons.
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