Amazon’s The Ring of Powers makes a significant debut but negative reviews are spoiling the fun

Image source: Amazon

Amazon Prime Video finally dropped the long-awaited Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power, to a record-breaking number of viewers.

Viewers

The premiere drew 25 million viewers worldwide, making it the biggest debut in Amazon Prime Video history.

The figures were published in a company press release.

“It is somehow fitting that Tolkien’s stories—among the most popular of all time and what many consider to be the true origin of the fantasy genre—have led us to this proud moment,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios.

Competition

The debut of The Rings of Power came at a difficult time as it faced stiff competition from the HBO series House of the Dragon.

The $465 million series based on JRR Tolkien competed with the Game of Thrones prequel series, which debuted with the highest scores in HBO history.

House of the Dragon attracted 9.986 million viewers through its HBO linear and HBO Max streaming platforms.

Criticism

Despite the promising numbers, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power also faced some criticism.

Although critics and fans of Peter Jackson’s films have praised the series, Rings of Power has been bombarded with negative reviews.

Since the series premiered, many have criticized the casting choices, especially the addition of black people.

Meanwhile, loyalists criticized the portrayal of female dwarfs, focusing on the lack of beards as depicted in the books and movies.

Variety reports that Amazon has taken unusual steps to delay The Rings of Power reviews for 72 hours to filter out trolls.

However, the show was reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes, earning a 37% rating from users, while critics gave it an 84% rating.

Amazon Prime Videos plans to evaluate reviews to determine if they are legitimate opinions or if they come from a troll or bot.

The company executed a similar plan when the A League of Their Own baseball series kicked off on August 12.

The strategy proved successful as the series received a 4.3 rating (out of 5 stars) on the streaming platform compared to 94% of Rotten Tomatoes critics.

References:

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ sets Amazon Prime viewing record

Amazon suspends Lord of the Rings reviews as it becomes Prime’s biggest premiere

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