An epic battle is about to be fought, and it’s not between warring houses or mythical creatures.
It’s the battle between TV mega-franchises, and it’s going to be a very exhausting few months for audiences who are being asked to invest deeply in not one but four huge genre series, which between them have cost close to a billion dollars.
The main event is the confrontation between a game of thrones prequel, House of the Dragonalready lord of the rings prequel, The rings of power.
And if you think the media is hyping up this TV war, consider this: Around this time last year, Amazon announced that it would premiere The rings of power on September 2, 2022. He gave everyone 13 months notice. Then HBO swooped in and picked August 21st as the date House of the Dragonlike damage for a fight.
Both shows will air their finales in the same week. This is a deliberate choice, and not everyone can emerge victorious. It’s gonna be a shit fight.
It’s like Marvel and Warner Bros decided to release an Avengers and Justice League movie on the same day.
Both shows are betting big on the drawing power of two established brands with rusty fans. But will audiences commit to two highly demanding and complex fantasy shows?
Or will fans decide they prefer elves to dragons, or royal scheming over the rise of Sauron, and reserve what little time they have each week for something completely different, perhaps a workplace comedy? Each series attracts the same group of fans.
The fact that they were both high fantasy shows would have been unthinkable 25 years ago, when the genre was considered a nerd-only niche.
And yet the most important cultural points of interest in this relatively young century have been those of fantasy. Harry Potter is a large number of books, movies, theme parks, merchandise and stage shows. game of thrones has dominated the television zeitgeist in a way that nothing else has the same degree of obsession, including The Sopranos i Breaking Bad.
Part of that is because game of thrones it came at a time of increased pop culture discourse online, when TV recaps and Reddit were on the rise, fueling the level of fervor around the show. The series spawned an online industry.
But it’s also because fantasy epics are now mainstream and every studio and streamer wants one, or two, or three, or four, or five. And they are willing to pay for it.
The rings of power has the honor of being the most expensive television series ever made. In addition to the $250 million Amazon paid for the rights to JRR Tolkien’s Second Age, the production budget was $465 million. Over eight episodes, that’s $58 million per episode.
Note that The rings of power It doesn’t have any big-name actors who would have big paychecks, so that money will go almost entirely into production, splurging heavily on world-building.
When this first trailer was released during Comic-Con, you couldn’t argue that it didn’t at least look spectacular.
House of the Dragonwhich will air in Australia on Binge and Foxtel*, is relatively insignificant as it is in the $150-$200 million range for the 10-episode season, which equates to less than $20 million per episode.
Fantasy shows don’t come cheap, especially when 17 dragons are involved.
In the middle of it all there are two brazen, though no less ambitious, contenders on the wings, The sand mana highly anticipated adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s legendary comics, i Andora Star Wars streaming series.
Such is the incredibly timed state of affairs that a Star Wars TV show isn’t even the second most anticipated streaming series.
That’s probably why this morning Disney blinked, saw the wild landscape and said, “Yeah, no, we don’t want to get into that,” and pushed. Andorthe three-week launch at the end of September. Wise choice.
Disney would have Andor no favors if it had kept its original August 31st release date in between House of the Dragon i The rings of power. It’s not high fantasy, but sci-fi is a very close genre cousin.
By moving it to September 21, Andor will drop three episodes at once and get some fresh air. Disney will hope fans have done their part House of the Dragon i The rings of power options and installed, willing to consider a third option.
And Netflix also has a horse in the race, The sand manwhich will be released on August 5. Netflix would expect that The sand man he releases early enough to avoid the main fight.
The sand man is a high-stakes story about Dream, the being responsible for our subconscious state, who is captured and held captive for a century, unleashing chaos across realms.
It’s not the most accessible narrative and the title has been in various stages of production since the 1990s, having reached the desks of various filmmakers and on-screen talent including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Roger Avary and Terry Gilliam .
It’s only now, after Jackson’s runaway commercial success lord of the rings trilogies and the original game of thrones series that TV executives even have the confidence to greenlight and finance a show based on a relatively esoteric comedy series. The sand man It reportedly cost $165 million to make.
Decision makers have witnessed the appetite for genre art and want to capitalize on this public desire by pumping lots and lots of money behind these works.
Everyone is trying to find the next thing game of thronesincluded game of thrones. HBO waits feverishly House of the Dragon will be able to recapture the same obsessive fandom as the original series.
Of couse, game of thrones it only happened because of Jackson lord of the rings.
Like Jaime and Cersei, it’s all very incestuous. Also like Jaime and Cersei, everyone is about to enter the battle. Ask yourself whose head will be crushed by a caving ceiling.
The sand man it’s on Netflix starting August 5th House of the Dragon it’s on Binge and Foxtel from August 21 The rings of power has been on Amazon Prime Video since September 2 and Andor is on Disney+ starting September 21st.
*Binge and Foxtel are majority owned by News Corp, publisher of this website