Lord of the Rings TV show could cost Amazon over $500 million
By Shawn Lealos
Lord of the Rings is coming to Amazon after the company won a bidding war to win the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s series.
Amazon paid $250 million for Lord of the Rings, which a few experts thought was a recipe for disaster.
As I previously discussed, the money spent on Amazon original movies and TV shows is not measured in the number of people watching the shows — it is measured in how much people who watch the shows spend on similar Amazon products.
That makes the news of how much Amazon might actually spend on the Lord of the Rings exclusive Amazon Video TV series make sense. Reuters reported that Amazon will spend a budget of $500 million on the two-season deal for Lord of the Rings.
Lord of the Rings will be completely new stories in the world that Peter Jackson already brought us on the big screen. Now, when looking at Amazon spending $500 million on the new series, understand that it is more than just people watching the new show.
Go to Amazon and type in Lord of the Rings into the search box and there are books, movies, clothing, Kindle books and even things for the home and kitchen listed for sale.
The J.R.R. Tolkien books, the movies in DVD, Blu-ray and Amazon Video, as well as the extended editions all for sale. There is a mock Ring that sells for $16.99 and a poster print that sells for $10.99.
Reuters reports that Amazon Video spent $72 million for the first season of The Man in the High Castle, based on a Philip J. Dick story. The site reports that Amazon reported 1.15 million new subscribers just to watch that series. If those 1.15 million subscribers paid for a yearly subscription, that brought in $113 million — not including what they spent at Amazon after subscribing.
Next: Killing time till Game of Thrones: 6 shows to watch
There is a lot of criticism on Amazon Video spending this money based on the Netflix and Hulu models but this is a different business model. Amazon is spending the money, and there is little doubt they will get a lot of that money back one way or another.