Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a prequel to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books and Jackson’s trilogy. When the idea of the series was pitched there was a bidding war between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Amazon Prime finally won the bidding war at $250 Million. That’s just the sale price. Since, Amazon had the rights to the material, the show entered development and they made one choice that changed everything. They decided not to adapt the books exactly as they’re, the story of the show starts 200 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. The show is set in the second age, the same time which was presented to us as the back story in the films.
Amazon’s choice has turned controversial as the fans of the books and Peter Jackson’s trilogy are unhappy. To be honest, the series is still loyal as the stories being told are from Tolkien’s world. There was a lot buzz around for the series, both in a positive and negative way. So the long awaited series debuted on Amazon Prime Video this Friday. The series debuted with two episodes, giving all the fans a double feature. And today, as the weekend is coming to a close we have the viewership numbers for the first two episodes of the show are out. Let’s see how did the series fared.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Viewership Numbers Bigger Than House of the Dragon?
The Lord of the Rings prequel has not been to get warm response by fans or critics. No one has denied the magnanimous scale of the show but when it comes to storytelling…its a hit or miss. The prequel is the adaptation of Tolkien’s Silmarillion. The show seems like a loyal adaptation of Tolkien’s world. However, I can understand the notion amongst fans that the series feels like an attempt at proving they can do Lord of the Rings better than Tolkien.
Amazon knows the power that they’re wielding and they’ve not put their foot down when to comes to making the LOTR prequel. Apart from the $250 Million bidding war, the first season of the show has been made on a budget of $465 Million, making it the most expensive TV show of all time. Sorry Game of Thrones. Even though show was review bombed with only 37% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems like the anticipation of the show was so high that it lead to amazing debut viewership numbers.
LOTR: Rings of Power’s first two episodes have debuted with 25 Million Viewers actively watching the show in the first 24 hours. Prime is famously known for not disclosing their viewership numbers but after these astronomical numbers they decided to released it. Another reason for them release the viewership would be HBO’s House of the Dragon. The GOT prequel had a terrific opening with 9.986 Viewers watching the show making it HBO Max’s biggest debut.
After Rings of Power’s debut it seems like this has broken any previous record of viewership debuts. It is fair to say that Rings of Power has beaten House of the Dragon when it comes to the debut. However, the GOT prequel has been very well received. Rings of Power has taken a flying start but from the reviews and the taboo atmosphere around the show it doesn’t seem like it will retain these numbers when the third episode of the show will drop next week.
Rings of Power has been already picked up for a second season so it has time to improve and redeem itself. Prime has not revealed the standards from which they count a view like. How many minutes into the episode does count as a view. House of the Dragon has proved that the prequel is standing strong with its second episode showing a 2% growth over the pilot. Regardless of the numbers Rings of Power episode 3 really needs to show us something interesting it plans to survive as until now it is a slug fest.
LOTR: Rings of Power’s first two episodes are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. New episodes will debut on every Thursday or Friday on Prime Video depending on the region you live in, at 9 pm ET.
If you have any questions regarding Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, feel free to ask in the comments below. For more content, stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!
