Amazon Bribing People To Watch Lord Of The Rings Series As It Continues To Underperform
Amazon appears to be so desperate to get Brazilians to watch The Rings of Power, they are offering them free food coupons.
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It may sound like a bad joke, but Amazon Prime Video is reportedly offering free food to Brazilian viewers if they’ll watch their floundering Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power. According to a new video by YouTuber George The Giant Slayer, a visit to the Prime Video Brazil Instagram account reveals an offer for a coupon to iFood, a food delivery service that is Brazil’s version of DoorDash or UberEats. The catch: you have to watch the first episode of The Rings of Power to get it.
George the Giant Slayer shared screenshots from the Amazon Prime Video Brazil Instagram account, promising the iFood coupon will be emailed to Prime subscribers after they watch the first episode of The Rings of Power. While that sounds like great deal, it should be noted that the coupon offers viewers 30 rials, which converts to about $5 in American money. That’s not even enough for a fast food value meal in America, but maybe Brazilian restaurants offer better deals.
Bounding Into Comics detailed how it is just the latest attempt by Amazon to get someone – anyone – to watch the show, which started off with promising ratings after its September 1 premiere. However, according to various tracking services, viewership declined in subsequent weeks. It rebounded for the October 14 season finale, but the bad buzz surrounding the series has loomed over the show like the clouds over Mt. Doom in Mordor.
George the Giant Slayer, in typical YouTuber fashion, has his own hot take on why the series has flopped, as he blames the show’s “woke” mentality. Even for those who embrace that argument, it’s hard to pin the show’s struggles on that factor alone.
Although Lord of the Rings fans took issue with many of the aspects, themes, and characterizations in the show, it had some promising and pretty entertaining elements. Ismael Cruz Cordova’s portrayal of the elf Arondir, who leads the fight against the Orcs, was excellent, but the series as a whole seemed too disjointed, and failed to bring the many parallel storylines and multiple characters together by season’s end. Even the most die-hard Tolkien fans admitted they had trouble following the multitude of characters and deep references to the mythology, so even casual viewers were often lost as to what was going on.
By contrast, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon faced a similar challenge in attracting viewers for a series no one really asked for. While Dragon often stumbled in its first season, with time jumps and character recastings, its focused storyline and entertaining episodes won skeptics over. As a result, House of the Dragon is pulling in far more viewers than The Rings of Power.
It seems the promotion is an effort to keep viewership engaged as the season ends and viewers’ attention is pulled elsewhere. Disney+ is trying a similar tactic with its Star Wars live-action series Andor, by offering the first two episodes on cable TV to attract viewers.
Bounding Into Comics also mentions a rumor that Amazon is considering totally rebooting The Rings of Power, attempting a total do-over in season two that may see an entirely different storyline or even characters. Given the hundreds of millions Amazon has committed here, that rumor is either complete nonsense or a desperation move to save the series, and sadly, both seem plausible at this point.
