Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres to 25 million viewers

Within one day, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered to an extraordinary amount of people.

Amazon Prime Video revealed more than 25 million accounts watched Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on the first day of release.

That makes it the biggest premiere in the history of Amazon – however, Amazon does not reveal viewership numbers for its titles so the 25 million figure exists in something of a vacuum. Amazon also did not clarify what counted as a view.

If Amazon chooses to release updated viewership figures at the end of the week detailing how many accounts watched The Rings of Power in the days following its premiere, it’s likely to be significantly higher as positive word-of-mouth spreads.

The visually and narratively ambitious series launched in 240 markets on Friday to predominantly rave critical reviews which highlighted the show’s production values and cinematic spectacle.

The fantasy series is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings works and is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Peter Jackson’s films.

Amazon spent $US250 million on the rights to the material and a further $US465 million on the eight-episode first season production. It’s the most expensive TV series ever made.

More than 200 million households has access to Amazon Prime Video globally.

But it’s not all good news for The Rings of Power, which has been beset by “review bombing”, a practice in which belligerent “fans” purposefully and concertedly rate a series down for perceived slights.

This is more common in genres such as fantasy, sci-fi and comic book movies and is often directed at shows and movies led by female or non-white characters. Recently, Marvel streaming series She-Hulk and Ms Marvel were victim to the practice.

“Review bombing” is often obvious by the disproportionate number of one-star reviews for a title, versus a regular spread of star-ratings for a show that hasn’t been the target of an organised online effort. It also sometimes happen before a title is released to the general public.

The Rings of Power is currently sitting on a 39 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 84 per cent critics score. It has 6.8 average rating on IMDB, with 24.4 per cent of votes in the one-star column.

“Review bombers” often point to political and social grievances as a reason for a negative rating. The Rings of Power was targeted for its diversity in casting while others pointed to the series’ deviation from Tolkien’s material.

The Rings of Power Picture: Amazon Prime Video

The series crafted the story from the appendices of Lord of the Rings, which sketched out the narrative but had few details. The show’s creators, self-confessed Tolkien super fans J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, took creative licence in filling out the details and expanding the world.

The timing of The Rings of Power launch, a week-and-a-half after the premiere of Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, has set up a fantasy face-off between two high-profile projects. In fairness to The Rings of Power, it staked its date more than a year ago and it was House of the Dragon which decided to play on its turf.

House of the Dragon’s first episode was watched by 10 million people on the first day in the markets in which HBO directly operates either its pay TV or streaming service. Most territories, including Australia, was not included in that number as the series is distributed through a third-party platform.

In the week following the initial broadcast, HBO recorded a viewership of 25 million viewers for the opening episode.

In Australia, House of the Dragon’s premiere was watched by 1.2 million people through Binge and Foxtel* within the week after its release.

*Binge and Foxtel are majority owned by News Corp, publisher of this website