Amazon’s one-billion-dollar investment in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power streaming series does not appear to be paying off. Forbes reports that the second season of the ultra-woke show has suffered a “sharp viewership decline” from the first season.
“According to Amazon, Season 2 has reached 40 million viewers in 11 days,” reports Forbes. That might sound like a lot, but the first season of Rings of Power “reached 25 million viewers in just one day … Clearly this represents a massive decline in viewer numbers season-over-season.”
Forbes is not the only source reporting on this decline.
“According to data from Samba TV, 902,000 U.S. households tuned in for the premiere episode within four days of its debut, which is down quite significantly from the first season,” reports Deadline. That 902,000 is half the number of people (1.8 million) who tuned into the first episode of season one.
This comes after season one lost a whopping 63 percent of viewers over its eight-episode run. It looks like most of the people who had no interest in finishing the first season didn’t even bother to see if things improved in season two.
To secure the rights for this Lord of the Rings prequel, Amazon agreed to a five-season run of at least 40 episodes, which resulted in a billion-dollar rights/production spend and commitment.
Purely for political reasons, Amazon did to Lord of the Rings what Disney did to Star Wars: Secured the rights to a beloved property with a huuuuuge fan base and took a dump all over that fan base. I suffered through the first two episodes of the first Rings of Power season and found it terminally boring. The diversity casting is ridiculously self-conscious. The Mary Sue protagonist (Galadriel) is even blander than Star Wars’ heroine Rey, and the story has no sense of momentum. Above all, you don’t feel anything for the characters because they are presented as woke symbols instead of real people with an inner life.
Worse still, you could just feel the oppressive social messaging and the Kathleen Kennedy-esque joy the creators took in deliberately alienating the hardcore fans.
Amazon promised a course correction in season two. Maybe there was one. I don’t know. Life’s too short to waste time finding out. Regardless, as you can see in the ratings, the first season was so off-putting that pretty much no one thought it was worth the time to give the show a second chance. The Critical Drinker says we made the correct decision.
Amazon is contractually obligated to produce three more seasons at around $100 to $150 million per season (the rights alone cost $250 million).
Season one resulted in a dismal 38 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Season two sits at a little better but still brutal 58 percent.
There has never been a Hollywood era like this one, an era where widely beloved, bulletproof properties are not aimed directly at the sweet spot of the fan base but instead determined to alienate them.
It’s lunacy.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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