Ludi Lin Calls Out Amazon Studios Head Over Lord of the Rings Show's Lack of Diversity

A lot of eyes are currently on Amazon's upcoming The Lord of the Rings prequel series which boasts a production budget of $465 million for Season 1 alone, something that is quite unprecedented for a television series. Now, amid all the growing hype for the show which has been in development for years, the project is already generating criticism this early and one actor is upset that it isn't as diverse as he'd like for it to be.

Credit: New Line Cinema

To be fair, author J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the books drawing massive inspiration from ancient English and Norse mythologies but in today's standards, the lack of diversity, most especially Asian representation in the upcoming series isn't going to sit well with Mortal Kombat and Power Rangers actor Ludi Lin who took to Twitter to blast the project.

In a tweet, Lin called out Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke for building a fictional world that doesn't include characters who look like Asians. He wrote: "It's going to be difficult to justify building a "huge world" without any characters that look Asian. Turn that imagine on us @JSalke. It's not hard, we're right here."

Salke, who recently justified the staggering budget of the series has yet to respond to the criticism. Meanwhile, when you think about it, Lin raises a pretty valid argument and I think we can all agree that the landscape of film and television has gravely changed through the years. Heck, even franchises like Star Wars have learned to highlight diversity into their universe and I don't see why Amazon's The Lord of the Rings shouldn't do the same. Hopefully, this will be an eye-opener to the people behind the series. I mean, it's not too late to fix and "correct" things after all.

No official release date for The Lord of the Rings has been announced yet. If you are looking for where to watch The Lord of the Rings, it is currently streaming on HBO Max and Hulu.


Also Read: Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series Gets Major Reinforcement with Addition of The Witcher Director