Rings Of Power Viewership Proves Lord Of The Rings Is In Trouble
With the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuting less than a month ago, many were eagerly waiting to see how the show would do in terms of its viewership. The show is potentially the most expensive project ever made for a streaming platform, but for the first season, it debuted to middling reviews. And now with the second season here, viewership seems to have been cut in half, perhaps signaling the Lord of the Rings brand is not quite the powerhouse Amazon had hoped.
Season 2 Sees A Massive Dip In Viewership
For comparison, the first season of The Rings of Power released its first two episodes at once and amassed 1.2 billion minutes of viewership numbers during that initial debut period. Meanwhile, season two released its first three episodes at once and yet its viewership dropped dramatically to just 553.5 million minutes watched for that debut period. That would seem to suggest that the show lost over half its audience from season one to season two.
Considering it is estimated that Amazon has invested about a billion dollars into The Rings of Power, those cannot be the kind of results they were hoping to see. The plan was for the series to have five seasons, but some analysts are now questioning whether Amazon will stick by that plan if the series continues to see such significant drops in watch time.
A Far Cry From The Lord Of The Rings’ Success
Amazon no doubt hoped to see the kind of success that Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy did, with each movie being critically adored, financially successful, and the final movie having one of the most successful award seasons of any movie ever. But if the results of The Rings of Power are an indicator, that success may have been lightning in a bottle.
A Similar Fate To The Hobbit Trilogy?
It is not as if The Rings of Power is the first Lord of the Rings property to underwhelm. The Hobbit trilogy also left many fans and critics disappointed, finding the adaptation of the beloved children’s book to be bloated and lacking the heart of Jackson’s first trilogy. The Rings of Power is receiving similar criticisms of taking too many liberties with Tolkien’s lore and feeling like a lesser imitation of the classic movie trilogy.
Return On Investment Seems Unlikely
While a great deal of what Amazon paid for The Rings of Power came from purchasing the rights to the property, each season of the show is still additional money that could be used elsewhere if the series is under-performing. Considering Amazon has numerous other series that also bring in high viewership numbers but also have lower costs and better critical reception, Amazon has to consider its options. Shows like The Boys and Fallout have both been some of Amazon’s biggest recent hits.
At The End Of The Day, Rings Of Power Needs Viewers
Season two of The Rings of Power will definitely be under the microscope to see how many minutes the overall season achieves once it wraps up in October. Season two is receiving a lot of the same criticisms the first season did, so it will be revealing to see what the show’s audience number winds up settling at.
Source: Variety
