Ian McKellen would love to play Gandalf again for Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV series

As Amazon Prime prepares to spend millions producing a Lord of the Rings TV series, on top of the $250 million it spent acquiring the rights, Ian McKellen has suggested that he'd be interested in reprising his iconic Gandalf role for the series.

While appearing on Radio 2's Graham Norton Show this weekend, McKellen rejected any chatter that a new actor could succeed him the role, offering an appalled: "What do you mean, another Gandalf?"

He went on to say, "I haven't said yes because I haven't been asked [to return]. But are you suggesting that someone else is going to play it? Gandalf is over 7,000 years old, so I'm not too old."

McKellen has played the wizard in all six of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, including the three-part adaptation of The Hobbit.

Something that may curtail McKellen's ambitions is that the new series is believed to be a prequel to JRR Tolkien's original trilogy, with events taking place in Middle Earth prior to the events of The Fellowship of the Ring. The show is planned to run for several seasons, with the possibility of a further spin-off series.