Amazon's Lord Of The Rings Series: Dominic Monaghan Would Star Under One Condition
Dominic Monaghan isn't involved in Amazon's Lord of the Rings series, but might be if the company can see eye to eye with him on one thing.
Monaghan, who portrayed Frodo's Hobbit cousin Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck in the Peter Jackson-directed movie series, revealed during an appearance on PeopleTV's Couch Surfing (via Entertainment Weekly) that he would reprise his role only if Amazon's $1 billion project centered around older versions of the beloved film characters.
"It just depends how they do it, really," said Monaghan. "If they do the older Hobbits sitting around reminiscing on their journeys, of course I'd do that."
The actor added that introducing a new generation of television-watchers to the world of The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits and elves and orcs and all, would "bring them back" to Peter Jackson's trilogy and to the J.R.R. Tolkien-penned book series.
While Monaghan sounds supportive of the series regardless of his potential link to it, another original Lord of the Rings franchise actor wants absolutely nothing to do with the show. John Rhys-Davies, who played the dwarven warrior Gimli in Jackson's trilogy, previously slammed the Amazon series, calling it a "disgrace" and stating that the creatives behind it are "utterly unprincipled" and simply hungry for money.
"You know they have the money to do it. Why we quite need Lord of the Rings as a TV series baffles me slightly," he said. "I mean, poor Tolkien must be spinning in his grave."
Even more unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that an older version of Merry would fit into the Lord of the Rings series. Amazon is apparently plotting the show as a prequel to the films, focusing on a young Aragon (who was pretty dang old, a ripe 87, when he first appeared in the films). But perhaps after hearing Monaghan's words here, the studio will shake up its plans and make room for some OG Lord of the Rings stars — like Gandalf actor Sir Ian McKellen, who previously expressed his interest in returning for the show — somewhere in the narrative.
After all, the only thing that sells better than sex is nostalgia.