For the past few years, Amazon has adopted the strategy of releasing a show’s first season in a binge watch format (all episodes at once) with subsequent seasons in weekly installments.
When it launched “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” though, they wanted water cooler chatter and so the first season launched with two episodes followed by weekly drops for the remaining six.
With the second they opted for three episodes initially then the remaining five weekly, an approach which worked well for them with “The Boys”. Now, with the third season of ‘Rings’ upon us – they’re doing something different again.
This time they’re launching with four episodes on November 11th followed by two episode drops on November 18th and 25th – meaning the season will be done and dusted in the span of around two weeks and be ready to watch in full over the Thanksgiving break.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, co-showrunner Patrick McKay explains the reasoning behind that approach this time:
“We have always thought about Lord of the Rings as a perennial, and that it’s a movie or a series that potentially your whole family can watch. Maybe it’s a little scary for young ones this time, but we love the idea of having the whole thing out before the holidays, with the aspiration that maybe people will binge it together. We’ll see. Fingers crossed.”
The third season starts five years later and begins with war raging as Sauron hunts for the secret to forming the One Ring from his stronghold in Barad-dûr. Meanwhile, only a few isolated pockets remain untouched, including Khazad-dûm, Númenor, and the elven realms of Lindon and Rivendell, who try to face off against the growing darkness.
