Amazon's Lord of the Rings announces its full creative team

The Hollywood Reporter

The writers, executive producers, costume designers, VFX supervisor and even a J.R.R. Tolkien scholar were announced this morning. As previously revealed, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will serve as showrunners, while J.A. Bayona will direct the first two episodes. Game of Thrones vet Bryan Cogman will, as also previously reported, serve as a consulting producer. Longtime Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul writer Gennifer Hutchison has also been added to the writing team, as well, which means she won't be involved with Saul's Season 5. "As our journey into middle-earth begins, we are in excellent hands with J.D. and Patrick at the helm, with this incredible team of talent that they’ve assembled,” said Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke. “The depth and breadth of the experience of this writing and production team is truly awesome, with a real respect for and knowledge of Tolkien lore. We’re so happy to have them on board and to see this exciting series start to come to life.” As William Hughes points out, however, showrunners Payne and McKay have never made a TV show before, but they've been "with an extremely overqualified Fellowship of more experienced hands," including a team of executive producers who have worked on just about every major TV show of the last 20 years—Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, The Sopranos, Stranger Things, Hannibal, and more."