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Just as suspected, Amazon’s upcoming big-budget Lord of the Rings TV show will seemingly film in New Zealand. The show’s Twitter account posted a tweet that pretty much confirms it.

The tweet simply posted the New Zealand flag, which has sent fans into a tizzy about the show being filmed in the same country as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies.

In June, the New Zealand Herald reported that a “huge” part of the Lord of the Rings TV show will film in New Zealand; Queenstown and Auckland were called out as potential filming locations.

It was previously rumored that the Amazon Lord of the Rings TV show may film in Scotland. It’s still possible the production will shoot in other locations outside of New Zealand.

While New Zealand is a beautiful country filled with incredible scenery that has inspired some of the Lord of the Rings’ most iconic scenes, the country’s association with the franchise hasn’t been entirely smooth.

Warner Bros., the film giant behind The Lord of the Rings, made headlines in 2010 when it reportedly had a back-and-forth with the New Zealand government to ensure friendlier terms for the movie studio. As Fodors reminds us, the “Hobbit Law,” as it became known, focused on how film crews were considered independent contractors, and thus their ability to collectively bargain and enjoy protections and benefits came into question. The new government that took power in 2017 sought to adjust the legislation to be more worker-friendly, but it remains to be seen if anything has changed.

Whatever the case, Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said he’s optimistic about the law being changed. “We’re looking to restore a lot of workers’ rights that have been diminished over the last nine years, and that is a priority for us,” he said, as reported by Fodors. “It’s something that we want to have the legislation at least introduced within the first 100 days of government.”

For what it’s worth, this time frame has come and gone with no apparent change to the law.

The new Lord of the Rings show is set in the Second Age, which is a 3,441-year period that covered major events like the forging of the Rings of Power, including the One Ring; the War of Sauron, the beginning of the Ringwraiths, and when Numenor the island sank into the ocean. Also, it was during the Second Age that the Elven city of Rivendell was developed and the great battle where men, elves, and dwarves fought together for the first time against Sauron. A popular rumor was that the show would focus on a young Aragorn, but that may not happen.

JD Payne and Patrick McKay are writing Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show. They have no TV writing credits to their name, but neither did David Benioff and D.B. Weiss when they made the massively popular Game of Thrones series. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show recently brought on Game of Thrones series producer Bryan Cogman, who was known as the “third head of the dragon” for Game of Thrones, along with Weiss and Benioff.

There is no word yet on when the Lord of the Rings show will premiere, but we’re beginning to find out who will star in it. Black Mirror actor Will Poulter and Markella Kavenagh are in talks to play the lead roles, according to reports.

Behind the camera, Amazon has assembled an all-star team of writers and producers. The writers room for the untitled Lord of the Rings show includes Gennifer Hutchinson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Helen Shang (Hannibal), Justin Dohle (Stranger Things), Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones), and Stephany Folsom (Toy Story 4).

J.A. Bayona, the director of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, is directing episodes one and two of the Lord of the Rings show.

Kate Hawley is the costume designer; she previously worked on Edge of Tomorrow and Suicide Squad. Rick Heinrichs, who won an Oscar for Sleepy Hollow and also worked on The Last Jedi, is the production designer; Jason Smith, who worked on The Revenant, Super 8, and The Avengers is the visual effects supervisor. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey is also working on the new Amazon show, as is Lord of the Rings movie trilogy illustrator and concept artist John Howe.

The Amazon show also has numerous producers, including people who have worked on Westworld, Boardwalk Empire, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and The Departed.

In other news, a new Lord of the Rings video game focused on Gollum is in development at Daedalic Entertainment, while a AAA online Lord of the Rings game is also on the way.

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Over the years, we’ve come to expect Nicolas Cage to get unhinged in his movies. No matter how grounded the film, we all wait for the moment when–at long last–the midnight movie staple starts shouting his brains out or going nuts. This is all to say that a Lovecraftian movie that unites Cage with a director as fascinating as Richard Stanley (who is making his return to longform filmmaking after being infamously fired on the set of The Island of Doctor Moreau in 1996) should be prime for some iconic shenanigans.

Sadly, while we do get those moments in Color Out of Space, the movie doesn’t understand that Cage needs to be first restrained, then unleashed once the anticipation builds up. Combined with other issues, the result is a disjointed and at times painfully dull movie, despite the alpacas and the Cronenberg-esque body horror.

Based on a 1927 short story of the same name by acclaimed horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, Color Out of Space follows Nathan Gardner (Cage) as he contends with dissatisfaction with his idyllic farm life in rural New England. The farm, the alpacas, and the house where his family lives belonged to his father, who Nathan swore he’d never become. Nathan’s wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson), is going through breast cancer treatment. Nathan’s kids–stoner teenage son Benny (Brendan Meyer), Wiccan teenage daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), and young Jack (Julian Hilliard)–each have their quirks and occasionally drive Nathan nuts, but they otherwise manage like any other family.

Of course, everything goes to hell once a meteorite crashes onto the Gardner farm. It unleashes a gradual wave of increasingly weird events that seem perfectly designed to drive the family to madness–if it doesn’t make the audience go mad first. First comes the neon fuchsia glow that permeates the house and a whistling sound that hammers your eardrums for the rest of the film. Then it’s the strange flowers that begin to glow, and the nearly alien praying mantis with multiple sets of eyes that flies around the house. Then the residents of the farm begin to change too, first in personality, then in grotesque and otherworldly ways that could easily give you nightmares–especially when it comes to those dang alpacas.

H. P. Lovecraft is one of the most influential horror writers of the early 20th century, with his exploration of the fear of the unknown and what is now referred to as the Cthulhu Mythos serving as inspiration for countless works of horror. While a great source of inspiration, Lovecraft has proven to be a particularly difficult writer to adapt to cinema, due to the cosmic nature of his stories, which often rely on the horror of the unknown, and the audience never fully getting the answers they want.

If there’s one thing Color Out of Space does very well, it’s making you feel like you’re a part of a Lovecraftian cosmic horror story, and following the author’s style of storytelling. Stanley knows how to build anticipation and slowly reveal the sci-fi elements of the story and how the meteor changes the Gardner family and their property. The cinematography makes even the most ordinary objects and situations seem otherworldly and even terrifying–especially once the body horror comes into play and the film becomes outright grotesque. Unfortunately, Stanley reaches too far, and loses sight of the scope as the editing gets too frenetic, making the already messy plot feel overwhelming.

The problem with Lovecraftian stories is that by nature, all characters are hopeless against the cosmic forces that have drawn targets on their backs. No matter what the characters do, they (as well as the audience) are simply passengers on a ship they can’t steer or escape. In Color Out of Space, this translates to a feeling of repetitiveness and stupidity, with the characters making the same illogical, insane decisions over and over. This may satisfy Lovecraft fans, but it will bore anyone hoping for characters with any type of agency.

This is a problem that falls almost completely on the script and direction. Stanley knows how to build an atmosphere, but he quickly loses the thread as the film spirals out of control. For most of the second half, the characters frequently change their behavior and act irrationally, but there are no clear rules for what is happening to the farm or how it impacts the characters. We all expect Nicolas Cage to eventually lash out, and it’s a blast to see him lose his grip with reality and go off. But his performance, while amusing, feels out of place with the rest of the film, especially since no one else in the family can match Cage’s insanity.

Color Out of Space is an attack on the senses, at times thrilling and even scary, often gloriously grotesque and laugh-out-loud funny, but also overwhelmingly dull. This is a movie where the individual pieces make for good impressions, but when seen as a whole it becomes a messy attempt at extending what should have remained a short story into a feature film that overstays its welcome. That being said, fans of Lovecraft who know what they’re getting themselves into and fans of Nic Cage’s signature brand of crazy might still find plenty to enjoy in this movie.

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