Most viewers didn't finish Amazon's Lord of the Rings show, report says

Precious few viewers made it all the way through the most expensive show of all time, a new report says.

Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had a domestic completion rate of only 37 percent, meaning that's how many viewers started the show's first season and watched the entire thing, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed. The number was reportedly slightly higher overseas at 45 percent.

The Rings of Power, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, was Amazon Prime Video's biggest bet on original programming ever, and the first season alone was rumored to cost about $465 million. A second season of a planned five has been confirmed.

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Amazon has released a limited amount of information about The Rings of Power's viewership, though in September, Prime Video said the first episode was watched by over 25 million viewers globally in its first day, marking the streamer's biggest debut ever. Amazon Studios head Vernon Sanders also told Collider last year the show "has been a tremendous success" and is "our most-watched show, first-season scripted series, by far."

Still, the Reporter writes that the show has fallen "short of being the breakout hit that Amazon had envisioned" and that according to insiders, a completion rate of 50 percent would have been considered "solid but not spectacular." The Rings of Power allegedly fell even below that.

But Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke defended the series, telling the Reporter, "This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally." Salke added that the second season is now in the works and that the first season "required a lot of setting up."