Most people seem to agree that Peter Jackson’sLord of the Ringstrilogy remains one of the most enjoyable and impressive adaptations of all time. It was a massive media franchise before it became a series of tremendous blockbuster series, but the immediate aftermath cemented Tolkien’s work as a titan of another medium. Unfortunately, nothing in the intervening 22 years has reached anywhere near those early peaks. The unfortunate knock-on effect of this decline is that fans become increasingly distrustful of new material. Nostalgia can be a black hole that sucks up everything good about a franchise, as theStar Warsuniverse can attest.
There is rarely a consistent positive relationship between financial success, critical acclaim, and fan acceptance. A few works accomplish all three, and some manage to score poorly across the board, but those metrics tend to go inviolently different directions. Much has been made of the gap between critics and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but the added element of box-office earnings rarely breaks that tie. This guarantees that just about anything can appear to be a failure or a success, if one checks the right numbers.
New LOTR Material Isn’t Doing Great
The two most recentLOTRprojects tohit the screen areRings of PowerandWar of the Rohirrim. The live-action show proved to be one of the most expensive TV series of all time, while the animated film was a much more reasonable take on relatively obscure material from the deep lore. In both cases, the projects earned tepid reactions from critics, extremely divided responses from fans, and uninspiring numbers from the box-office/streaming numbers.Rings of Powersuffered a nearly 50% drop in viewership between its first and second seasons, a reduction that proved disastrous given Amazon’s massive investment.War of the Rohirrimbarely fared better, bringing in only $20 million on a $30 million budget. While neither project comes anywhere near the quality of the original trilogy, they’re far from terrible. Quality is not the only issue that plagues these entries. Nor is the vocal chunk of the fanbase that loses their mind whenever they see a woman or a person of color, who negativelyaffect the Rotten Tomatoes scorebut makes up only part of the poor viewership numbers. The real issue impacts a far higher percentage of the fandom.
Fans Flock to Familiar Concepts
As the general perceived quality of afranchise likeLOTRdrops, fans become increasingly wary of anything new. Going to the movies or even committing time to streaming shows is an increasingly difficult proposition as content becomes more saturated and a trip to the theater becomes more costly. This makes the fanbase as risk-averse as the studio, withholding their money and attention until they feel 100% sure they see something they like. Unfortunately, good word-of-mouth is rarely enough these days. Fans need to see a familiar actor, character, or set of concepts to believe that what they’re looking atbelongs in the franchise.
BothRings of PowerandWar of the Rohirrimtried their hardest to pander to fans with tons of callbacks and mountains of straightforward references in the marketing. The earlyWar of the Rohirrimtrailer literally featured a minute or so of clipsfrom the Peter Jackson moviesas if to say, “Remember? It’s just like these, right?” Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to create this apparently necessary association in the minds of fans. This leads to these franchises circling the drain, relying entirely on callbacks to draw attention rather than exploring new material to keep things fresh. Nostalgia becomes the only thing they can deliver, slowly suffocating the franchise in its own iconography.
Star WarsHas the Same Issue
TheStar Warsfranchise is the best example of this issue. While its history isn’t quite as long, it’s another media empire built on some of the most influential material in the history of fiction. UnlikeLOTR,Star Warstook some big, bold steps in later entries, many of which didn’t pay off. The prequels encouraged the franchise’s new owners toplay with nostalgia inEpisode VII, but they got experimental again with the following entry. The divisive reaction, much of which was powered by overwhelming and massively impactful bigotry, pushed the franchise back into the cowardly world of nostalgic pandering. Now, Disney seems terrified of making a movie, relying entirely on their straight-to-streaming series. Even those suffer from the massive gap between nostalgia pandering and new horizons.Andor, almost unquestionably the best thing to happen to the franchise sinceReturn of the Jedi, suffered poor viewership numbers while boring retreads likeObi-Wan Kenobipulled in millions of eyes. This fan reaction reinforces the studio’s dominant impulse to fixate on returning actors and familiar stories over anything new or interesting. DittoThe AcolyteandSkeleton Crew,shows with various issuesthat also suffered rough numbers as a penalty for daring to try something new. This could easily become the grim fate ofThe Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Ringshasn’t tried anything quite as pandering asRogue OneorThe Book of Boba Fettjust yet.War of the Rohirrimwas an attempt to boldly step into new territory, butits terrible box-office resultswill give the studio the wrong message. It’s a self-replicating cycle that only makes the franchise worse. Creators need to keep taking risks with big names likeLOTR, andfans need to give those swings a chance. The long-term health of Middle-earth rests on the fans as much as it does the creators.
