In 2002 I "mitched" (played truant) from school. It was the only one of two occasions I'd ever done so, and when you're a teenager you feel like it's a much bigger deal than it actually is - especially if you're not one of the "cool kids" that does it so often it becomes boring. What I remember, however, about this particular excursion was that we (the group involved) quickly decided we needed to do something which didn't cost that much money but which also meant we could not draw suspicion to ourselves....and so we went to the cinema....spending most of the day watching the SECOND Lord of the Rings film, 'The Two Towers' which had recently been released.
To this day, I've never seen another Lord of the Rings film, and a lot of the blame for that lies with this occasion. The Lord of the Rings, it seems, made a weird kind of sense because the film was somewhere in the region of three hours or more long and so (with trailers) gave us a pretty decent chunk of time to avoid being spotted by some - heretofore mythical - truancy officer. Also, because it was the will of the group, I don't remember ever having a choice in the matter and I'm fairly confident that I didn't reveal to my classmates that I'd never bothered to watch the original film. So, subsequently, I understood very little of what was going on - I'd never read the books and in the years since I really didn't care all that much for LOTR as a franchise. I was a 'Star Trek' kid and I'd nailed my colours pretty clear to the mast on this one - and didn't fancy becoming a red shirt.
20 years later, therefore, I find myself pondering both the immense cultural successes of the franchise and also wondering where the last two decades of my life have gone. I'm probably one of the few people on the planet - within the correct age demographic - who couldn't honestly say they're a fan. Now, don't get me wrong, I've nothing against the Lord of the Rings, but with so much media in our daily lives (Marvel, DC, Pokemon, Star Trek, Star Wars, Transformers, Terminator, The Matrix, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter to name but several arguably successful franchises of the past two decades) there was only so much I could really absorb; and LOTR just fell by the wayside. Shit happens.
But it was with great interest that I recently read a report from IGN on 'The Rings of Power' which (for those, like me, living under a rock) is the new Amazon series based on the story of how the rings came to be. Things have certainly changed since the turn of the millennium, the rise and popularity of Netflix alone has changed the face of television, with each major broadcasting corporation having at least some stake in one of the many streaming services now available worldwide. And whilst at first these services traditionally provided little more than collective nostalgia and memories of old, original content conspired to change all that, with more money pumped into reboots, reimagining's and prequels of sequels yet to be released. And, in an ironic twist, the corruptive influence of money soon meant that what had begun as a niche/different 'Indie' project was soon the main focus of all TV.
This particular article, however, focused on one specific aspect of the new show - which has yet to be released - the sheer price of it's production. When 'Stranger Things' had revealed it would cost $30 million per episode many had been shocked in disbelief; believing Disney had set the bar high enough with Stars Wars 'Mandalorian' - rumoured to have costed upwards of $15 million per episode. But nothing, it seems, could now compete with 'The Rings of Power' which were estimated to have a production cost of $57 million PER SINGLE EPISODE - an estimated half a billion dollars, HALF A BILLION, in completing Season 1 alone.
To my mind, such figures are obscene, and whilst I acknowledge that the productions themselves may provide employment and opportunity within the Industry; it seems like a contest to spend money simply to compare "whose the biggest" with your portfolio amongst the networks. Like Formula One or the Premier League before them, these decisions have little - if anything - to do with the quality of the product and far more to do with the sensationalist headlines and attention grabbing accolades. The age old mantra is that "money talks" when it should focus on the story, the quality of the script and the performances given on the screen. The corruption of money means that as well the series itself, considerations are given to how to market the product, how much merchandise can be sold and what other licenses (like video games, t shirts, trading cards) can be exploited.
Although the Lord of the Rings is unquestionably a popular franchise, it's continued success predicated by renewed interests, means that failure - especially at this level - is simply not an option. For the product to work, to gain profit (because, after all, isn't that the goal of televisual production) it needs to be successful - a cult or fringe following simply won't do. And so, much like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the audience begin paying the product before it's released - by subscription to the streaming service; with Amazon - in this case - hedging it's bets, allowing for a certain amount of gambling that the market won't collapse, that there won't suddenly be a mass exodus of memberships and that, instead, this will have several million members migrate over.
Nobody that I know, at least not anyone whose willing to admit it, actively subscribes to more than a handful of streaming services (at most) and I recently had my own conversation with my partner in which we discussed what subscriptions would need to stop, and when, due to the mounting costs of television ownership. This in itself then encourages piracy, which is a potential solution, but again unlike 2002 it's more trouble than it's worth to do so. In fact, if there is one thing streaming did well, it was taking actions that Internet pirates relished in; ease of access, exclusive content; and monetising it. It's simple and useful to stream and takes the hassle out of piracy.
One possible outcome is that this current situation of spending more and more eventually causes the balloon to burst. How is such a business plan sustainable? Is this not the lesson we've learned by now? Whilst we wait for the next step to come and take it's place, starting the cycle over again....