Amazon’s billion-dollar gamble on “The Rings of Power,” their highly anticipated production of J.R.R. Tolkien’s *Lord of the Rings* universe, seems to be collapsing under the weight of its own woke agenda. The second season of the show has debuted, and the numbers paint a bleak picture for a series that had sky-high expectations.
Early reports suggest that just over 900,000 households tuned in to the second season’s first episode within its first four days—an astonishing drop from the 1.8 million households who watched the debut episode of the first season within three days. While Amazon remains tight-lipped about the actual viewership data, these estimates reveal a troubling reality for the streaming giant.
This rapid decline in audience interest isn’t just a hiccup for Amazon; it’s a direct reflection of a much larger issue plaguing the entertainment industry—audiences are simply fed up with woke storytelling. For a show that reportedly cost Amazon over $1 billion to produce and market, the fallout is significant. And why wouldn’t it be? Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary work have been alienated by a production that prioritizes political and social commentary over the heart of the *Lord of the Rings* story.
Critics and audiences alike have slammed *The Rings of Power* for diverging from Tolkien’s original vision, inserting modern-day political ideologies into a world that was supposed to be timeless and apolitical. What was once a beloved fantasy universe has now been distorted by Hollywood’s obsession with ticking diversity boxes and pushing progressive messaging. For many Tolkien enthusiasts, it’s a betrayal of everything they once loved about Middle-Earth.
But this isn’t an isolated case. Across the entertainment industry, we are witnessing a massive backlash against the relentless push of woke content. Streaming services and the box office alike have suffered as audiences reject these politically charged narratives. Just this past summer, the box office saw another year-over-year decline, driven by a slew of “woke” movie titles that failed to capture the public’s interest. Meanwhile, films that have steered clear of overt political messaging—like *Twisters* and *Deadpool & Wolverine*—have found smashing success.
It’s clear that the American public is tired of being force-fed a social agenda. One only needs to look at the implosion of the *Star Wars* franchise’s latest failure, *The Acolyte*. The show was canceled after just one season, a move that came as no surprise given its abysmal audience reviews. With an audience rating of just 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, *The Acolyte* became one of the lowest-rated *Star Wars* shows in history. Fans were so outraged by the show’s blatant disregard for George Lucas’s original vision that they started a petition to “de-canonize” the series.
The petition reads like a love letter to the *Star Wars* that was, before Disney’s takeover twisted it into something unrecognizable. One fan wrote, “I hate seeing their stories being trashed and ret-conned by creators that hate the very existence of George Lucas’s original story and his characters. They can’t create so they want to destroy.”
It’s no wonder audiences are flocking to content that respects its roots and offers pure entertainment, free from the heavy-handed messaging that dominates woke productions. As Amazon reels from the declining viewership of *The Rings of Power*, the message is loud and clear: audiences don’t want their beloved franchises hijacked by Hollywood’s left-wing agenda. They want stories that inspire, not lectures disguised as entertainment.
