Amazon Studios Talks The Lord of the Rings’ Success, Competing With House of the Dragon, and Plans for Season 2

Amazon Studios has a smash hit with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Production is underway for the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the fantasy TV adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal work. Instead of adapting the core The Lord of the Rings epic for television (much in the same way that Peter Jackson adapted the books into a trilogy of films), Amazon Studios took a gamble by making a prequel of series, focusing on the creation of the Rings of Power and the rise of Sauron during the Second Age. Amazon’s gambit paid off, as the new show was viewed (according to Amazon) by over 100 million people worldwide, with 25 million viewers watching the show on the first day alone. Not only did Rings of Power break every previous Prime Video record for most viewers, it also drove more new Prime Video sign-ups during its launch than any other show or movie. 

ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Vernon Sanders, Amazon Studios’ Head of Global Television, about the success of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, competing with HBO’s House of the Dragon, and Prime Video’s investment in genre franchises. “I was hopeful that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power would be a success, but with a mixture of some healthy anxiety,” Sanders said about his expectations about the show. “As a giant endeavor, I often describe putting together a TV show like 100 arranged marriages all happening at the same time. And so Rings of Power was probably quadruple that just given the size and the scope and how international it was. But I was excited to take on the challenge and I think it’s one of the things that we pride ourselves here is to do ambitious things. And within our halls, we often call ourselves the home of genre. So a shot at making something that is so beloved by so many people I think was daunting, but also really, really special.” 

With the success of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Amazon Studios launching other high-profile projects like Wheel of Time, The Peripheral, and the just announced Warhammer 40K live-action franchise, we followed up by asking Sanders whether Amazon was using genre shows to separate itself from other streaming platforms. “Well, it has certainly paid off for itself,” Sanders responded. “It’s a big gamble and the success we’ve had has been rewarded. So that’s both a relief and incredibly gratifying. When you think about Amazon, the beginnings of the company were all about books and storytelling and so it’s in the DNA of the company, which is why I think us telling stories and connecting with authors, whether it’s Neil Gaiman or Jack Carr, I think that’s one of the things that we do extraordinarily well.” 

“When we make great versions of that content, fans of that content really respond in a way that is sizable and impactful for us as a business,” Sanders said. “I’m a comic book fan. I think we have fans of stories and narratives all throughout the company, and so I think it does make sense why that content resonates with us. And yes, you will see more announcements in the not too distant future of other beloved things that we hope to adapt here for Prime Video.” As if to emphasize Sanders’ point, just a day after our interview, Amazon Studios announced plans to work with Henry Cavill to adapt Warhammer 40K into a full cinematic universe of shows. 

While The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was successful from a “minutes viewed” standpoint, the show had to contend with a passionate response from fans. While some loved the expansion into the more obscure bits of Middle-earth lore, others were upset with the truncated timeline and other deviations from the source material. “We set up our own study with thousands of people, among them thousands of The Lord of the Rings fans, to really have a conversation with them as each episode dropped to just understand how they were reacting,” Sanders said when asked about Amazon’s views on the fan reaction. “We were doing as much of a 360 comprehensive look to really understand it. And I think we got a lot of those The Lord of the Rings fans, both fans of the books and fans of the movies. We also know that there were some fans who had issues or didn’t feel like this was what they were expecting or done in the way that they expected, and that’s natural. I think whenever you take on something that’s so beloved, you’re going to have probably a strong reaction for and have some people who just aren’t on board.” 

However, Sanders felt that it was most important to create something of quality, and that was as true to Tolkien as they could make within the parameters of their license. “Having Simon Tolkien and the Tolkien Estate helping us, I think gave us some comfort that we were doing the best that we could and that having their endorsement meant a lot,” Sanders said. 

From there, the conversation turned to the competition between Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, HBO’s spinoff to Game of Thrones that launched just a few weeks after Rings of Power. Both shows had parallel releases for seven weeks, turning the wider conversation about the cross-section of pop culture and fantasy. “My first reaction was surprise, and then my next reaction was, ‘Of course they did,’” Sanders said when asked about his reaction to HBO choosing to release their fantasy series at the same time as Rings of Power. “If I were in their shoes, I might do the same thing.” 

However, Sanders noted that both shows would need to stand on their own, and felt that Rings of Power could even benefit from House of Dragons coming out at the same time. “In fact, that’s what I think happened,” Sanders said. “We made our show knowing that Game of Thrones was going to be a thing people were going to have on their minds, and that property is such a different tone. We really went back to the text to try to guide us on what felt right for Rings of Power. And so having both shows on at the same time, actually I think drove a lot of interest from fantasy fans. There are people who loved their show more. There are people that loved our show more. There are people that loved both of them and some people who didn’t like either of them. But if you’re a genre fan and you think about what the history of television has been, it’s such an incredible time to have these kinds of things being made and/or coming out shortly thereafter.”

While we didn’t want to ask too many questions about the specifics of Rings of Power’s narrative, we did have to ask about choosing to keep Sauron’s identity a mystery, which paid off in the finale. “One of the challenges for this show, when you are adapting something, is to tell the story that people are excited to see, but sometimes find ways to surprise them,” Sanders said. “Sauron, I would argue the greatest villain of all time. And how do you get to know that person? How do you get to understand how they work? What are the layers there? And I think because of the way the story was told and because of the great performances of Charlie [Vickers] and Morfydd [Clark], I think audiences now have an insight whether he fooled them or whether they knew it the entire time, there’s a much more interpersonal human side of this character, and I’m so excited for people to see Sauron unleashed in season two.”