Fantasy fans are sure going to be happy this television season, as two of the biggest and most popular franchises in the fantasy genre are returning in big-budget television series for a major streaming service. First up is Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon premiering on HBO and HBO Max on August 21, 2022. Then just two weeks later, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime Video on September 2, 2022.
Not only are both series spin-offs of the two most famous sword and sorcery franchises of all time, but both are also prequels that take place long before the events of the most popular entries (House of the Dragon is 200 years before Game of Thrones while Rings of Power is thousands of years before The Hobbit). Both will premiere just two weeks apart, with House of the Dragon premiering on Sunday nights and The Rings of Power will premiere on Friday nights. It also is fitting because Game of Thrones was created as a book series as an answer and reinvention of the fantasy genre Lord of the Rings defined, while Amazon's decision to create a Lord of the Rings series is an attempt to have their own Game of Thrones-style television series. Other than the fact that both are original from authors with two R's in their pen names (George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien), the two series and franchises are closely linked and in conversation and competition with one another.
This is nothing new, as the two biggest science fiction franchises, Star Wars and Star Trek, both aired television series this summer with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Wednesday and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Thursdays over the past summer, and both were able to find an audience and become massive hits for their respective streaming services. Both House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powers have a lot going for them, but also a few issues working against them, so let's break them down and see what the series will have to overcome.
House of the Dragons Follows One of the Biggest Shows of All Time
It is hard to believe, but when Game of Thrones first premiered, the first episode only brought in 2.2 million viewers and season one concluded with 3.04 million. By 2019 the first episode of season eight brought in 11.76 million viewers. Game of Thrones became a full-blown cultural phenomenon and event television for a large audience. It is arguably one of, if not the most successful television series of the 21st century. Even after the series concluded, the original show has been a constant hit on HBO Max for audiences, either revisiting the series or for audiences finding it for the first time.
House of the Dragon is the next entry in the popular franchise, and that certainly will bring viewers in who want to revisit the world. It is also focusing on the history of the franchise's most popular character and the series' iconic dragon imagery. While it has only been three years since Game of Thrones ended, fans of the original series and television goers likely miss that shared cultural experience and will hope that House of the Dragon can recapture that.
Game Of Thrones Has to Overcome Negative Audience Reaction
While Game of Thrones was one of the most popular television series of all time, it also had one of the most controversial final seasons of a television series, with a very contentious final episode. That puts House of the Dragon in a difficult position of having to win back audiences who might have been turned off from the franchise following the finale. This is a similar hurdle that both Dexter: New Blood and How I Met Your Father had to overcome, being continuations and spin-offs of popular series with negatively received finales.
More recently, the Wizarding World franchise which was one of the most successful multimedia franchises in the world suffered a disappointing box office bomb with the release of Fantastic Beast: The Secrets of Dumbledore, as it was the first film in the Wizarding World franchise to not gross $100 million. That film was likely seriously hurt by a combination of negative press and the poor audience reaction to the past two Fantastic Beast films.
While there is a vocal contingency of audience members who were upset with the Game of Thrones finale episode, House of the Dragon likely is hoping that audiences' positive memories of the series outweigh the negative association with the finale.
Rings of Power Can Build Off the Long Gap Between Films
Lord of the Rings and Tolkien fans are used to waiting between adaptations. There was a nine-year gap between Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003 and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2012. Now there is a similar gap of eight years between 2014's The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies and 2022's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. That wave of nostalgia for Middle Earth built the first Hobbit movie into a worldwide success and made it one of the most anticipated films of 2012. There is now a combination of audiences who have not only waited eight years since the last Hobbit film, but also means the series is arriving 21 years after Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened in theaters, with multiple generations of fans wanting to explore more of Middle Earth.
With this being the first television series based on Lord of the Rings, and the promise of allowing audiences to immerse themselves in Middle Earth week after week is a similar angle that hooked audiences with The Mandalorian as a chance to live in the Star Wars universe week after week.
No Peter Jackson in Rings of Power
While Tolkien is the writer and creator of Middle Earth, the second most important figure in the Lord of the Rings franchise is without a doubt director Peter Jackson (equally important but less credited are writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who wrote all six of the Middle Earth live-action films). While Lord of the Rings was already a successful and influential book series known the world over, Peter Jackson's films launched the series to a whole new level of popularity worldwide. Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings was one of the earliest films to earn $1 billion worldwide. His six Middle Earth films grossed $5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
The Rings of Power is sticking close to the visual aesthetics that Peter Jackson defined in The Lord of the Rings films, the first major attempt at a live-action franchise without Jackson is certainly a daunting task. The series' status as a prequel works in its favor that there can be some creative differences. However, there is likely to be some major discussion about the different approaches to The Rings of Powers with Jackson's adaptation choices for Middle Earth and that could make or break the series.