Amazon's $1 billion bet on its new "Lord of the Rings" streaming TV series is falling flat, posing risks for Amazon Studios and the company's Prime membership program.
Critics have praised the series' scope and ambition, but it has rankled audiences who gave it a 39% rating. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy earned an audience score of between 86- 95 on the Tomatoes. The audience rating for "The Rings of Power" was an anemic 6.8.
The "House of the Dragon" was released a month ago. It has an audience score of 84% and an audience rating of 8% in the internet film database. "House of the Dragon" attracted more viewers than "Rings of Power" during the three day post-debut window.
The Lord of the Rings' fans may be to blame for Amazon's problems.
Despite the enormous budget for the series, it will be impossible for Amazon to please the millions of Tolkien fans.
There is a risk that the series itself will be disappointing, since there is bound to be a character, plot, subplot, line etc.
There is a risk that some Prime members could cancel their memberships if the ratings are low. Part of Amazon's strategy is to get more people to subscribe to Prime because they end up buying a lot of other things from the company.
Amazon disabled the ability of viewers to review "The Rings of Power" on its own Prime Video platform in order to protect the series from a lot of negative reviews. The series hasn't had a review six days after it was released.
It was not a good look to turn off reviews. Things are going to appear worse because of that.
People leaving negative reviews said "The Rings of Power" was a break from the spirit of the book.
The reviewer who gave the series half a star said to cover your eyes. If you're a fan of the author, you won't like this.
"Tolkien is turning in his grave," said one hardcore fan.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022
Other analysts said it was not likely that Prime members would cancel over a single show. Mark Shmulik said that Prime subscribers rarely cancel.
Shmulik said it was too early to judge whether this would be a success or a failure. The reviews of the first two episodes are more important than the audience's response to subsequent episodes. Is it possible to keep excitement up? The rate of decline in viewers for the next episodes is not known. Measures are important to measure.
It is likely that the audience scores for the series will improve as people who are less invested in the series watch it.
"The Rings of Power" was the biggest premiere ever, according to Amazon. More than 25 million people watched the series the day it dropped, according to a press release from Amazon.
The 200 million Prime members who stream videos and TV shows have a bigger audience. That raises questions about how worthwhile the series is for the nearly 88% of Amazon Prime members who didn't watch the premiere, but who are paying an extra $20 a year in part to recoup the huge cost of making the series.
Insider previously reported that Amazon executives will be keeping a close eye on how many inactive Prime accounts watch "The Rings of Power."
The number of Prime subscribers who have watched "The Rings of Power" is not known.
The future of Amazon Studios is dependent on "The Rings of Power" being a hit.
There will be a big question from the board if it doesn't succeed, according to a former senior Amazon Studios executive. Why is Amazon Studios here if we can't take this piece of intellectual property?
This person said that it has to succeed. There is no alternative.
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