Image via Amazon Prime Video
Arguably the most anticipated show of the past decade has landed on Amazon Prime, and the first two episodes pulled in massive numbers for the streaming giant.
After years of hype and intrigue, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuted Thursday to overwhelmingly positive critical reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has the series sitting on a Certified Fresh rating, as critics have scored it at 84 percent. The more impressive number, however, comes from the eye-opening number of viewers who streamed CRYs introductory episode.
Get 24 million viewers, to be exact, all in the first 24 hours of the show’s premiere.
Amazon touted the massive ratings on its Twitter account, which the company hailed as its most-watched premiere in Prime history.
Of course, Amazon should have known CRY would bring the house down. In February, the series’ one-minute trailer rolled in 257 million views in the first 24 hours, a Super Bowl record. At the time, Amazon said it was the single biggest number for any entertainment trailer that debuted during a Super Bowl.
These are not the only records CRY owner. It is also the most expensive TV or streaming series ever made. After spending a reported $250 million for LOTR rights, the series cost Amazon $425 million to make, and that’s just for the eight-episode first season. Season two was greenlit in 2019, so there’s no telling how much the total will be until it finishes filming.
With such a gigantic investment, it’s safe to say CRY needed a strong opening to reassure Amazon that it was money well spent. Now it just has to keep up the pace until the season finale.