The Rings of Power Budget

The new season will be released at the end of this month so we take a dive into the makings of the show and how much is the Rings of Power costing Amazon.

The first season was released in 2022, as 25 million people watched on the same day making it Amazon’s biggest premiere to date. This is a larger audience than HBO’s Game of Thrones release day despite the audience growing much more over their 8 seasons.

amazon fire stick tv remote in hand

 

The budget

Season 1 of The Rings of Power had a budget of $465 million and season 2 has promised an even bigger budget to produce larger and greater scenes for viewers.

The budget rose to $700 million when factoring in the price of buying the rights from J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate.

To compare, the very successful Lord of the Rings trilogy which began production in 1999 and cost $281 million which in 2020 would be $436 million.

A smaller budget than one season of The Rings of Power.

The Lord of the Rings has a runtime of 11 hours and 26 minutes which cost them $38.4 million per hour.

For The Rings of Power with a runtime of 9 hours and 17 minutes this cost $50.1 million per hour.

 

The success

Amazon have claimed the show has brought them great success and profit, despite the lack of a figure added to this claim.

A large profit seems surprising as the show’s viewership severely declined throughout the season. Despite the 25 million people watching the show on the day of release of 37% of viewers who started the show made it all the way to the end. Two thirds of viewers stopped before watching the finale.

 

Amazon will be hoping for a much more successful second season to improve the profits.

Will you be watching?