According to a new report, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had a relatively low viewership completion rate in the US, but Amazon Studios believes the show is a success that will grow further for Season 2 and beyond.
The Hollywood Reporter cited data suggesting that 37% of people in the US who started The Rings of Power did not finish all of the episodes in Season 1. The site said a completion rate of 50% is considered good but not great. Outside of the US, The Rings of Power got closer to that, reaching regarding a 45% completion rate among viewers, THR said.
The report did not include any further specifics regarding viewership for The Rings of Power. According to Amazon, the series was seen by 100 million people. The creative team has five seasons mapped out, including the very last shot. Season 2 is currently filming in the UK, and Season 3 should be officially announced this year.
Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke does not agree with the suggestion that The Rings of Power has come up short. “This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success–it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally,” she said.
The THR story goes on to dig into some of the reported behind-the-scenes drama at Amazon Studios. Insiders told the site that Amazon Studios has “no sense of what the philosophy is.” An anonymous showrunner with multiple shows at Amazon said the company’s lack of success is confounding in part because the company has “more money than God.”
Salke, for her part, said The Rings of Power and other Amazon Studios shows have driven subscriptions to Amazon Prime, and that’s where the real money is. “The proof exists that the giant tentpole shows are driving people to subscribe to Prime,” she said.
The full THR story on Amazon Studios is stacked with fascinating insight into one of the biggest companies on the planet–go read it here.
Circling back to The Rings of Power, Season 2 will have “dramatic story turns,” the report said, and Salke said this is a “huge opportunity.” Salke added that Season 1 “required a lot of setting up” the events to come.
Indeed, Season 1 of The Rings of Power did not reveal Sauron until the very last episode. Now that the main villain is out in the wild, things are starting to heat up story-wise.
“It’s going to grittier, more intense, maybe a little scarier,” executive producer Lindsey Weber said. “Certainly, it has a lot of the same other tonal ranges that you find in the show, which we feel are really sort of fundamental to feeling like you’re in Middle-earth, but once Sauron is openly on the move and working his plans, things get rather interesting.”
In other news, The Rings of Power Season 2 suffered some setbacks recently when a horse died and a warehouse caught fire.
In addition to The Rings of Power Season 2, there are new The Lord of the Rings movies in development right now, but it’s still very early days. On the more immediate horizon, there are five more Lord of the Rings video games set for release in the next two years.
