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The third season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerwill premiere later this year, and the buzz is building. An upcoming issue of Empiremagazine will have a feature story all about the new season. It will include a report from the set as well as interviews with Daniel Weyman (Gandalf), Morfydd Clark (Galadriel), Robert Aramayo (Elrond), and showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne.
Empire also talked to Charlie Vickers, who plays the Dark Lord Sauron. The cover for the new issue, which comes to newsstands on Jul. 30, features Sauron sporting a whole new look. A still from the upcoming season also showcases the Rings of Power villain on his throne. Check it out below:
The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before characters like Frodo, Sam, and Aragorn were born. At this point, Sauron is still establishing himself as the Dark Lord. In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, Sauron never leaves the tower of Barad-dûr, preferring to stay put and conserve his strength while he looks for the One Ring. But in the Second Age, Sauron is often on the move, and still has the power to assume any form he chooses. In the first season of The Rings of Power, he takes the form of a soldier named Halbrand. In the second, he assumes the form of Annatar, the benevolent 'lord of gifts.'
In the third season, it looks like Sauron is done trying to convince people he has their best interests in mind. He's decked out in bleak battle armor, with the crown of his former master Morgoth on his head. This fits with what we know about Rings of Power Season 3, namely that it will skip forward several years and pick up in the thick of the war between Sauron and the Elves. Sauron will finally get around to crafting the One Ring, which will push the show closer to the conclusion. Devotees of J.R.R. Tolkien know that Sauron may go through at least one more transformation before this is all over. But he's now closer to the classic villain that Lord of the Rings fans remember from the movies than at any other point in the Prime Video series.
The third season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will debut on Nov. 11. Season 4 is already in development, with a fifth and final season hopefully to follow after that. There are also multiple Lord of the Rings movies in the works, including The Hunt for Gollum, which is due out in theaters on Dec. 17, 2027.
