Hollywood has become obsessed with the streaming metrics for Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and HBO Max’s House of the Dragon—both the overall metrics and the inevitable desire to juxtapose the two series. After all, the numbers are presumed to be leading indicators for the sort of mega-expensive, high-stakes fantasy I.P. bets that pervade the post-Netflix-correction streaming era. Will the long term financial return merit the extraordinary upfront investment? Every studio executive in town is watching closely to figure it out. With the first season of both shows just past their midway marks, it feels like a good time to check in on the raw performance that Rings and Dragon are actually delivering. 

Nielsen reported last week that The Rings of Power’s first two episodes amassed 1.25 billion minutes watched, or some 9.5 million completed views, according to my calculations. (Amazon noted that the series “attracted more than 25 million viewers globally” on its first day.) That’s decidedly less than the combined 9.9 million viewers that Warner Bros. Discovery says tuned in for House of the Dragon across linear and HBO Max on a single night in the U.S. alone. Yet not only is Rings underperforming its biggest fantasy competitor, it is also only marginally surpassing less expensive content on the Prime platform. The third season of The Boys, for instance, logged 949 million minutes over its first three episodes when it debuted, and The Wheel of Time pulled 1.16 billion minutes over its first three episodes when it premiered. Even setting aside the $250 million that Amazon paid upfront for rights to the I.P., both were produced for a fraction of what The Rings of Power cost.