We certainly live in an interesting time where a Best Picture winner like Moonlight can cost somewhere under $4 million while an Emmy-winning series like Game of Thrones can cost $15 million per episode. When it was announced that Amazon would be pursuing a prequel series based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series, we all knew it would come with a hefty price tag. The rights to the franchise alone cost $250 million. Now according to a new report from Reuters, production and marketing could cost another $250 million, bringing the grand total to $500 million. The budget would only skyrocket higher if the show goes beyond two seasons.
At half a billion dollars, the series would be three times more expensive than the first two seasons of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, which started out with a budget of $72 million. Even more jarring, it could also cost more than the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. According to the figures on Box Office Mojo, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King had a combined production budget of just over $280 million. The show still wouldn’t be quite as expensive as The Hobbit trilogy, which reportedly had a back-to-back production of $623 million. Nevertheless, this would still be a huge investment for Amazon.
In recent years, streaming services have coughed up the big bucks to produce high-quality television. This has resulted in a ton of great shows, but also a ton of debt. According to a 2017 report from the Los Angeles Times, Netflix is $20 billion in debt, which isn’t surprising given how much they paid for programs like The Crown and movies like The Cloverfield Paradox. Of course Netflix has also picked up several ambitious projects that they just couldn’t afford to keep going, such as The Get Down and Sense8.
Amazon, meanwhile, spent $81 million on Good Girls Revolt, which failed to draw in enough viewers to to gain a second season, despite receiving critical acclaim. The more successful Man In the High Castle reportedly gained 8 million U.S. viewers as of early 2017. Amazon spent an estimated $63 per subscriber, which isn’t half bad considering that a U.S. Amazon Prime membership costs $99 annually. Will this Lord of the Rings series be able to show a profit, though?
Well, all six Middle-earth movies made a combined total of almost $6 billion at the worldwide box office. Granted, box office numbers and streaming numbers are two very different beasts. Based on the success the franchise has had over the years, though, this prequel series could indeed be an enormous hit for Amazon… assuming it’s actually worth subscribing for.
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