Now that both House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power wrapped up their debut seasons, it seems fairer to compare how well these two fantasy blockbusters did for their respective streamers, though the outlook really hasn’t changed much.
As prequels to beloved properties Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings running at the same time, the two series were pitted against each other for the past two months, despite data showing there’s a pretty significant overlap between fans that preferred one and watched the other. Nonetheless, House of the Dragon had apparently come out triumphant, even when only accounting for streaming viewership without adding HBO's cable users.
In that sense, data analytics firm Chartr (@chartrdaily), recently put out a definitive breakdown that aims to measure each show’s performance. Relevant metrics such as related Google searches (USA only) show House of the Dragon with a wide lead over its competitor. As for how both shows fared with critics, scores on review aggregator sites were more even with a slight edge in House of the Dragon's favor. On the other hand, audience reception was nowhere as close, showing Rings of Power fell off with users on practically every platform, including Amazon's own rating system.
Chartr's own Instagram post states that all differences aside, it would appear that both shows were big wins for their own studios. However, the caveat is that House of the Dragon's $200m budget was, at the very least, 2.5 times smaller than Rings of Power's, even with two extra episodes. The firm also notes that preferences seem to be pretty split, as their own office poll resulted in a draw.
Out of the two, Rings of Power has more room for improvement in season 2, especially considering its source material is much more scarce and less direct than House of the Dragon, which had the benefit of author George R.R. Martin constantly praising the work done by the showrunners. In the meantime, both fantasy series will go back to the drawing board, as the complexity of each production means fans won’t be seeing a new season of either one until 2024.
Some criticism behind The Rings of Power points to it copying too many Lord of the Rings moments or themes, without directly adhering to certain aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien's lore. House of the Dragon certainly doesn’t suffer from that, as Martin has been gushing praise about how some of his characters made the jump.
House of the Dragon season 1 is now available on HBO Max and Rings of Power season 1 is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Chartr Daily | Instagram
