TIME’s new cover: Inside the secretive, bighearted “Lord of the Rings” prequel series. After five years of development, “The Rings of Power" will finally premiere Sept. 2 on Amazon Prime. With a record-setting price tag of well over $1 billion, it will be the most expensive show ever made. No other series in the history of television has been this sprawling, this cinematic, this massive—or launched with such extraordinary secrecy under such external pressure. The success of "The Rings of Power" will also indicate whether the streaming bubble is about to burst. Streamers, particularly those that don’t run ads, must grow their subscriptions to thrive, so they’ve stocked their libraries with new spin-offs, sequels, and prequels to familiar franchises. "Lord of the Rings" is arguably the last piece of highly valuable intellectual property that had not yet been snatched up: Publishers often tout it as the fourth best-selling book in history, behind only the Bible, Mao’s Little Red Book, and the Koran. Jeff Bezos, a J.R.R. Tolkien aficionado, led the charge at Amazon to acquire the rights to “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” for $250 million in 2017. "Hollywood is all about the bottom line, but everyone involved insists this is, at least in part, a labor of love," writes Eliana Dockertman (@edockterman). Read more about the risk behind the newest LOTR installment and the crew bringing this masterpiece to life at the link in our bio. Photograph by @bryanhuynh for TIME