Return of the sting

Amazon's "Rings of Power" is the most expensive show of all time. So why does it feel like nobody cares?

“The Rings of Power” season two (Prime Video)

The Gist

• Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” still seems to be suffering from a lack of enthusiasm.

• Based on Nielsen data, the season two premiere lost over half of the show’s US audience from its series debut in 2022.

• “The Rings of Power” is the most expensive series of all time and five seasons are planned. Will anyone care by then?

Hey everyone, welcome back to The Traverse. As I said last time, I’ve been super busy lately. Things will calm down next month when I can get back to a more regular schedule. That said, I hope to publish multiple pieces over the next few days. Enjoy!

To the uninitiated, Amazon’s ultra-expensive series “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” would seem like a blockbuster. The company says the second season, which concluded on Thursday, had gained 55 million global viewers ahead of the finale.

But a closer look at other viewership figures suggests the outrageously big bet might be struggling to connect.

Bare with me: the show was watched for 1.015 billion minutes in the US the week that the first three episodes of season two debuted, according to Nielsen. The measurement company said that 70% of that was for those three episodes in their first four days, so let’s say 710 million minutes. Doing some math on the episode runtimes, that would generously translate to about 4 million viewers. Double that number were watching Amazon’s own “Fallout” in the US, based on Nielsen estimates.

The first two episodes of season one, way back in 2022, generated 1.25 billion viewing minutes in their first four days, which breaks down to around 10 million viewers. So the show lost over half its audience in the US between its series premiere and its second season?

We could deduce that even from Amazon’s own wonky viewership stats. Ahead of the season one finale, Amazon had said the show was approaching 100 million viewers. Even if the 55 million number is accurate (but it has to be inflated, right?), that’s a drastic drop reflective of the Nielsen numbers.

“The Rings of Power” has been clouded by outsized expectations since its launch, given its hefty price tag. Amazon paid $250 million just for the rights and hundreds of millions more to produce the show. During season one, the show was largely losing the relevancy battle to “House of the Dragon,” which aired at the same time. This season, Amazon didn’t make the same mistake, choosing to premiere “Rings of Power” season two nearly four weeks after “House of the Dragon’s” second season had ended.

Maybe it’s not necessarily fair to pit the two against one another. But as a barometer for what people are interested in these days, it’s worth comparing. That was also the case two years ago, when I reported on the reception of the two shows for Business Insider. It must sting to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for “Lord of the Rings” for it to be a more niche product than the “Game of Thrones” prequel.

Nielsen’s weekly streaming charts measure from Monday through Sunday, meaning “Dragon” episodes that premiere Sunday night have a limited viewing window, and the bulk of viewing is represented in the following week. The second season premiere generated 210 million minutes of viewing on its premiere night on Max, which for an hour-long episode I’d estimate breaks down to 3.5 million viewers in the US (and that doesn’t include HBO cable viewership). Remember that the three-episode premiere of “Rings of Power” had 4 million viewers across its first four days.

None of this is a perfect science. But I think it paints a better picture than what Amazon has disclosed, a picture of the most expensive show of all time not quite generating the kind of excitement you would probably want from the most expensive show of all time. Amazon wants to make five seasons; will anyone care by that point?

It also raises questions about the future of the “Lord of the Rings” on-screen franchise, which — and this is probably part of the problem — peaked with “Return of the King” over two decades ago. It’s hard to top over a billion dollars and an Oscars sweep, no matter how hard Hollywood has tried since. The original trilogy may have been a phenomenon, but high fantasy is still hard for the masses to digest (I needed hours-long podcasts to help figure out what was going on in the first season of “Rings of Power”).

I’m not going to get into the confusing rights situation, except to say that Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema — which released the original and “Hobbit” trilogies — are still making “Lord of the Rings” stuff. Up next is the anime-inspired movie “Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” coming to theaters in December. It’s still two months away, but awareness for the movie is hovering around 20% this week, according to The Quorum, while “Gladiator II” and “Wicked,” both of which also come out in December, around around 40% and 50%, respectively.

Warner Bros. is also developing a live-action movie about Gollum, with Andy Serkis returning to the role, with plans to release it in 2026. Will anyone care by that point?

Beyond the Traverse

🐺 Speaking of streaming viewership spin, “Wolfs” — a movie Apple dumped on Apple TV+ — is the “most viewed movie” in the platform’s history. Not that difficult when the audience is already miniscule.

🐧 In more streaming viewership spin, HBO says that “The Penguin” is outpacing every other current HBO series — except its biggest ones.

🤮 Variety reports on how studios are enlisting “super fan focus groups” to advise on what fans will or won’t like in a movie. We’re all doomed.

🪺 DC Studios is making an animated movie called “Dynamic Duo,” starring the first two Robins, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.

☠️ More DC news: A movie is in the works starring supervillains Bane and Deathstroke. Did the super fan focus group weigh in?