The series is about determination and hope: J D Payne on 'The Rings of Power'

The 'Rings of Power'' is a series about determination and hope, said J D Payne, showrunner of Amazon's upcoming OTT series 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power', based on the works of legendary author JRR Tolkien a prequel to 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of The Rings'.

The series, based around the little-explored Second Age of Middle-Earth, and set thousands of years before The Lord of The Rings, explores the creation of the Rings of Power and The One Ring, and the rise of the dark lord Sauron, the main antagonist of the series.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific premiere of the show in Mumbai, showrunner J D Payne said that the world is in dire need of hope and that Tolkien's works embody the idea of having hope in the face of adversity.

"The series is about determination and hope," he said, in reply to a question to distil the web series into two key emotions. The Lord of the Rings is often told to be a shining example of friendship and love.

"Tolkien's works not just entertain, they inspire people," he said.

Speaking about adapting the works of Tolkien, whose works on the world before The Lord of the Rings largely comprised of anecdotes and poems, and which were eventually compiled into a part of The Silmarillion, Payne said that he and his co-showrunner Patrick took a lot of effort and painstakingly join the dots of Tolkien's ideas in an effort to create a cohesive story.

When asked about why they chose the streaming format for the series, Payne said that the format "offered a middle ground" between cinema and television, allowing creators to create both the grand scale of cinema and the longer format of storytelling common in television series. "It offers the best of both worlds," he said.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on September 2, and will be released in multiple languages in India including English, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil.