Two upcoming new television series, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop and Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings, have announced their returns to production dates in New Zealand, according to Deadline. Cowboy Bebop is set to resume the production process on September 30 while the television series based on The Lord of the Rings novels has just begun resuming filming. Due to the island country’s strict guidelines on COVID-19, New Zealand has seen limited outbreaks and has begun to lift restrictions, allowing for some series to resume its filming process.
Cowboy Bebop is an upcoming Netflix adaptation of the 90s Japanese anime series which follows the bounty hunter from Mars in Spike Spiegel as he goes on missions throughout space to collect his bounties with friends and foes. This Netflix reboot of the original series is set to appear in the live-action form with John Cho (Star Trek) as Spiegel, Alex Hassell (The Boys) as Vicious, Elena Satine (Revenge) as Julia, Mustafa Shakir (Luke Cage) as Jet Black, and Daniella Pineda (The Originals) as Faye Valentine. Currently, the series has concluded three of its episodes before a knee injury to Cho prevented the remaining production processes to be halted in late 2019. Due to COVID-19, this is the first instance of the series being able to begin to conclude its first season’s production.
The Amazon television version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic novels The Lord of the Rings are being developed by Patrick McKay (Flash Gordon) and J.D. Payne (Star Trek Beyond) and is expected to premiere in 2021. The highly successful novels-turned film blockbusters will be able to finish off its television form following the resuming of filming in New Zealand. The upcoming fantasy series was almost concluding production on its two-episode first season but was unfortunately halted due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. During the pandemic and quarantine, the fantasy series and its writers and producers have begun to prep the second season of The Lord of the Rings television adaptation. The cast for the series includes the likes of Tom Budge (The Proposition), Owain Arthur (Two Guvnors), Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones), Markella Kavenagh (The Gloaming), Nazanin Boniadi (General Hospital, Homeland), and many more.