'Lord of the Rings' series trailer debuts at Comic-Con

Comic-Con audiences got a sneak peek at the new "Lord of the Rings" series "The Rings of Power" Friday in San Diego. Amazon Studios unveiled a new trailer for the show, set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." Stephen Colbert, a self-proclaimed Tolkien fan, was also on hand to moderate a panel teasing the series on the fan convention's biggest stage, Hall H.

Under the leadership of showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" focuses on Tolkien's Second Age of Middle-earth, when kingdoms are forming and falling and evil forces loom and threaten to cover the world in darkness.

"The Rings of Power" will take audiences to fantastical locations like the Elven realms of Lindon and Eregion, the Dwarven realm Khazad-dûm, the Southlands, the Northernmost Wastes, the Sundering Seas, and the island kingdom of Númenór and introduce them to a large ensemble, including Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker).

The eight-part series will debut on Prime Video on Sept. 2, with new episodes arriving weekly. It is said to be the most expensive ever made, with a reported budget of $465 million. Amazon bought the rights from the Tolkien estate for $250 million in 2017.

Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, told The Hollywood Reporter last year that while the number is a "crazy headline that's fun to click on," "that is really building the infrastructure of what will sustain the whole series" which she called a "huge, world-building show."

Salke also said that a "giant, global audience needs to show up to it as appointment television" but that they were "pretty confident that will happen."

The fan convention kicked off this week at the San Diego Convention Center, back in full force for the first time since 2019, with many studios spending big dollars to promote upcoming films and television shows. Comic-Con runs through Sunday.