The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (70%) , Amazon’s most ambitious series, has generated high expectations, but its performance in terms of audience has been considerably lower than that of its first installment.
Despite the huge investments and the star-studded cast, the new season has not reached the same level of popularity as the first, and this has raised questions about the future of the series on the platform.
What has been the audience for ‘Rings of Power’ season 2?
According to Variety, the second season of Rings of Power has reached 55 million viewers globally since its premiere on August 29, 2024. However, this number represents a modest increase of just 15 million from the 40 million reported 11 days after the premiere, suggesting a slowdown in audience growth compared to the first season.
Deadline reported that the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (90%) pulled in 25 million viewers on its first day of release in 2022, making it one of Amazon Prime’s biggest hits at the time. In comparison, the second season has had a much slower start, with significantly lower numbers in the first few weeks.
Samba TV data, cited by Forbes, indicates that only 902,000 households in the United States watched the premiere episode of the second season in its first four days, while the first season reached 1.8 million households in a similar period.
Additionally, Season 2 debuted in the Nielsen Top 10 with 1 billion minutes viewed, which, while significant, is a drop compared to the 1.3 billion minutes the first season reached upon its debut.
It’s worth noting that the Season 2 figures include minutes watched from both the first and second seasons, further diluting the true impact of the new episodes.
What do Amazon executives say about ‘Rings of Power’ viewership?
Despite the drop in viewership, Amazon has remained positive about the performance of ‘Rings of Power’. During a presentation in London, Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, highlighted that the UK is among the main regions contributing to the series’ viewership. However, according to ‘Variety’, Salke did not provide specific data to back up this claim.
In an internal memo sent to employees, Salke said the series remains a “huge success” for Amazon Prime and noted that viewership outside the United States has been “impressive.”
According to Variety, Salke thanked the production and creative teams involved in the project, including showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay, as well as the executive producers and cast. In the memo, she emphasized that the series has resonated with global audiences and that Amazon is thrilled by the reception it has received outside of its home country.
Additionally, Amazon has stated that the series remains the number one title on Prime Video since its second season premiered on August 29. While the company has not revealed a clear definition of what it considers a “view,” this ambiguity has raised questions about how the reported numbers are actually quantified.
What’s next for ‘The Rings of Power’?
Despite the drop in viewership, Amazon is unlikely to cancel its flagship project, at least in the short term. The series was originally conceived to run for five seasons, and significant investments have already been made in its production.
According to Deadline, while the drop in viewership may raise concerns about the future of the franchise, there are no signs that Amazon will stop the project for now.
Critics, however, have pointed out that part of the problem may be related to the reception of the first season, which received mixed reviews due to its departure from JRR Tolkien’s source material and certain issues with script and character development.
According to Forbes, this could be a factor that has influenced the decrease in interest in the second season, despite Amazon’s efforts to improve certain aspects.
What do critics say about ‘Rings of Power’ season 2?
The second season of ‘Rings of Power’ has been praised for its impressive visuals and the evolution of certain characters, especially Sauron, as well as for its exciting action sequences.
However, several critics point out that the series continues to suffer from pacing problems, with subplots that don’t connect well and dialogue that lacks depth. Although some consider the season to be an improvement over the first, the narrative feels scattered and fails to take full advantage of its epic potential, leaving the plot feeling inconsistency.
IGN Staff
The second season of The Rings of Power does a great job of portraying Sauron’s machinations and their impact on those he manipulates, but too much time is spent on disjointed subplots that only offer mediocre intrigue and shallow characters. A more compact season would have been great, but the moments of great pathos and dramatic action that the season does offer are bogged down by scenes focused on places and people that will only become important later in the Middle-earth saga.
Collider’s Carly Lane
…if you get the sense that there’s only so much story that could be told in Rings of Power’s second season over the course of eight episodes, you’re not alone. Indeed, while there would be no possible way for the scope and scale of this series (which remains visually stunning, to its credit) to be compressed into a two- or even three-hour-long film, the season’s length overall doesn’t necessarily work in the show’s favor. The biggest, most unfortunate consequence of Rings of Power having such a large cast is that some characters will ultimately bear the brunt of it — and after two seasons, that symptom has become even more obvious.
Jeremy Mathai of Slash Film
While it doesn’t quite reach the level of Tolkien’s original novels or Peter Jackson’s adaptations, “The Rings of Power” delivers at its best: a confident, thrilling, gloriously nerdy return to Middle-earth (…) The more somber tone allows the cast and characters to shine brighter than ever. Whereas the first season waded through plenty of preamble to get to its eponymous rings, Season 2 immediately puts those objects of power center stage.
Angie Han from The Hollywood Reporter
…this volume shifts the narrative focus to the bigger picture. More iconic artifacts are introduced. More bloody battles are fought. More fan-favorite names are announced. There’s so much going on that it takes the first three hours of this eight-part installment just to catch up with all the main characters, and the stakes are so high that every conversation seems loaded with the potential to either save the world or destroy it. In such a momentous cascade of events, small moments tend to get lost. And since it was those small moments that made this universe come to life to begin with, The Rings of Power feels dull despite all that drama.
Alison Herman from Variety
The Rings of Power’s difficulty in communicating its stakes or basic mechanics is directly related to its difficulty in creating fictional beings with distinctive traits and memorable quirks. Sauron is one of the most iconic villains in popular culture, but in this version he’s no more interesting as an undercover agent than as an off-screen presence (…) The second season includes multiple forced and abrupt romances, and more wooden dialogue that keeps the viewer at a distance.
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