To say that “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is a massive bet for Amazon is a complete understatement. Sure, any big-budget series for a streaming service requires a bit of betting and good luck, but no other series in the history of TV has cost nearly as much as ‘Rings’ and required so much money upfront just to land the rights. When you talk about potential money lost for ‘Rings of Power,’ you’re talking more than $1 billion, not just millions.
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However, in a new interview with Deadline, Vernon Sanders, Head of Global TV for Amazon Studios, not only raves about the quality of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” he also wants to assure people that the series has been an unqualified success, more than Amazon could have even hoped for. That’s a big claim, but when you consider he’s already talking about Season 3 (while Season 2 is in production), the confidence is real.
“It’s been a tremendous success for us, it performed incredibly well around the globe,” Sanders said. “It is by far our biggest scripted series, it is the most acquisitive show that we’ve put out. After we finished releasing episodes, we saw a new surge of people come to the service to start the show. We’ve already released the fact that we’re over 100 million, and the number has gone up since then, it’s millions and millions beyond that.”
He continued, “We are really proud that the show drove renewed interest in the books, we saw spikes in book sales. It’s just been a company-wide success and as significant as our investment has been, it has more than paid off for us.”
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Part of the immense cost of ‘The Rings of Power’ isn’t just because of the huge production. Actually, a ton of money was paid in the huge deal with the Tolkien Estate, which saw Amazon intend to make five seasons of the series, even before one scene was shot for Season 1. Now, with the success of the first season and an impending early renewal for Season 3, it appears Sanders is incredibly bullish on the idea that Amazon will fully commit to five complete seasons of ‘The Rings of Power.’
“We are absolutely committed, we have every reason to be excited. They’ve done a tremendous job,” he said. “It’s a great question about Season 3, we’re probably two to three months in on Season 3 but I think there could be news certainly in the new year. There’s so much planning and prep that’s necessary for us to get this mounted that the only reason we probably haven’t gotten there quite yet is we’ve just been so heads down in Season 2, but I would expect there to be news in the new year.”
While ‘The Rings of Power’ didn’t get a ton of terrible reviews from fans and critics, the general consensus is that Season 1 is very slow-moving. That, of course, can be traced back to the fact that Amazon has pre-planned five seasons of the series, so the early episodes are definitely setting up things. However, there’s no denying that HBO has serious fantasy competition with “House of the Dragon,” which has been near-universally acclaimed and garnered quite a bit more buzz than ‘Rings.’ Even if that’s the case, Amazon seems to be overjoyed with the success of ‘Rings,’ not just in viewership but how the series has helped a variety of the company’s departments.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 1 is now available on Prime Video.