Money is not everything and it is possible to disappoint despite a very large financial investment. Proof of this is with this Prime Video series.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the most expensive series in history with a budget of no less than 450 million dollars. Which makes it a real monster, especially when you compare the costs of other series like Game of Thrones with 90 million dollars for season 8. For comparison also, WandaVision (Marvel) enjoyed a budget of 225 million dollars and The Mandalorian (Star Wars) a budget of 125 million per episode. If we go back further in time, even the impressive series The Pacific produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks had the right to “only” a budget of 150 million dollars. Starting from the premise we could expect an impeccable Amazon series with sufficient content to appeal to as many people as possible, unfortunately this was not the case.
When the most expensive series on Prime Video is a “flap”
As reported by our colleagues from Kotaku, a report published on April 3 by The Hollywood Reporter makes it clear that Amazon Prime’s TV and movie studio is a monstrous mess in terms of funding. Notably we can learn that only 37% of viewers finished the series on Prime Video. This is all the more disastrous since Amazon expected a percentage of at least 50%… An (anonymous) showrunner who worked with the company even declares:
They don’t learn from their mistakes
With 8 episodes, we can therefore legitimately ask ourselves questions for the rest of season 1 of the series Rings of Power. Season 2 should be released in 2024 but will it interest people? If only 37% of viewers saw the entire first season, that’s a huge potential loss for the sequel.
What to expect for the sequel to the Lord of the Rings series
Taking the numbers into consideration, will Amazon adapt its script for season 2? Filming has already been underway since October 2022 and we know in any case that the pace should be different. To put it simply, Amazon wants to improve the sequence of episodes. Big negative point of the first season. Will that be enough? In any case, in the meantime, it will be necessary to convince the undecided with Prime Video marketing to continue season 1 or at least offer an ultra-complete summary to immerse themselves in season 2 without hindrance.
