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It was actually interesting to me how Rings of Power is doing poorly relative to what I had expected its marketing to push. Nielson's minutes watched for the first two episodes came out last week and it was the top but not by what I expected. I think House of the Dragon had four episodes by then so that could confound a 1:1 comparison but I recall it only beating House of the Dragon by a kinda large margin (which should be expected for a premiere and one this heavily promoted) but House of the Dragon was still winning technically because the Nielson numbers for minutes watched didn't include live numbers for people who have cable/satellite for House of the Dragon. Though I wouldn't take into account people who talk about declining viewership, everything declines in viewership throughout a season, it might pick up near a finale but usually only up to the level of the premiere. Shows can increase viewers from season to season (this is very rare but usually happens when shows actually become hits like Game of Thrones or Stranger Things) but it never really happens while a show's running during a season.
The development path for Rings of Power started with Amazon buying the rights. I think that's the real problem. Well, the real problem is they bought the rights to something that they intended to use to make fanfiction about. It's like Amazon thought Lord of the Rings was a big IP because of its world and was something akin to Marvel or Star Wars where they were buying some broad spectrum IP they could make a bunch of stories out.
I just don't think Lord of the Rings works that way. In the same way it doesn't work for A Song of Ice and Fire. The minute Game of Thrones ran out of dialogue written by Martin it was apparent and depressing. They bought the rights to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and they're not even using them. They just wanted a name for a show and some of the characters. I don't understand Bezos. He loves The Expanse, revives it from cancellation, and then just lets it die. By the end it was just heads talking in black rooms with obviously half a season of content missing. And, he loves Lord of the Rings and wants to buy the rights for a massive amount of money with no plan other than to not make Lord of the Rings. Maybe it's not even about the prestige of making a good show, or celebrity clout, but just that he just wanted the prestige of owning those stories.
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