Amazon Studios Boss Calls ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Series “The Crown Jewel” For Prime Video

record with 10 million viewers in its premiere last month and boosted its viewership by 2% for its second episode. “The Rings of Power” is led by showrunners and executive producers Payne and Patrick McKay.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the biggest thing Amazon Prime Video has ever done, and it looks like the TV series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing has delivered big time.

Amazon Prime Video quietly introduced a new 72-hour delay for all user reviews posted to Prime Video, a representative for the streamer confirmed to Variety. Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it’s genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin. The practice caught notice after the premiere of the first two episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” Prime Video’s monumentally scaled fantasy series based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The series appears to have been review bombed — when trolls flood intentionally negative reviews for a show or film — on other sites like Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an 84% rating from professional critics but a 37% from user-submitted reviews. “The Rings of Power” has been fending off trolls for months, especially ones who take issue with the decision to cast actors of color as elves, dwarves, harfoots and other folk of Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth.

Today (September 1) sees the launch in the US of Amazon Prime Video ’s highly anticipated series, The Rings of Power. This epic drama, set thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is thought to be the most expensive TV series ever made.

EXCLUSIVE: Emma Roberts (Madame Web) will exec produce and star in Space Cadet, a new rom-com from Stampede Ventures, which enters production this month. Also now aboard the film from writer-director Liz W. Garcia (The Lifeguard) is Prime Video, which will distribute it internationally.

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Manori Ravindran International Editor Georgia Brown, head of Amazon Studios in Europe, is stepping down after five years in the role, Variety can reveal. The executive’s last day at the business is Wednesday (Aug. 31), though her departure is understood to have been in the works for some time. Brown is believed to be moving on to another opportunity, though it’s not yet clear what or where her new role will be. Brown has been a strong and prominent ambassador for Amazon Studios in Europe, and was the first executive hired to lead originals for the continent. In the 2016 to 2018 period, when a number of the global streaming services were first setting up shop internationally and kept their executives largely out of view, Brown was always front and center for Amazon, keen to discuss her local-first strategy.

Amazon Studios Europe’s content chief Georgia Brown is leaving the streamer after five years in the role.

EXCLUSIVE: Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel), Bobby Soto (Narcos: Mexico), Julio Cesar Cedillo (Narcos: Mexico), Veronica Falcón (Ozark), Sarayu Blue (I Feel Bad) and Eric Johnson (Fifty Shades franchise) are among the newest additions to Prime Video’s Michael Peña starrer A Million Miles Away, which has entered production in Mexico City. Others rounding out the ensemble of the Alejandra Márquez Abella-helmed film include Jordan Dean (Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace), Ashley Ciarra (Chupa), Michelle Krusiec (Hollywood), Emma Fassler (Recovery Road), Michael Adler (Super Pumped), Carlos S. Sanchez (Chicago Fire) and Isaac Arellanes (Ghostwriter).

While audiences anxious await Anne Hathaway‘s next performance in James Gray‘s “Armageddon Time,” in theaters this October, there’s news about one of her upcoming roles. Deadline reports that Hathaway will team up with “The Eyes Of Tammy Faye” director Michael Showalter for a new project for Amazon Prime Video.

EXCLUSIVE: Joaquim de Almeida (Fast X), Darren Barnet (Never Have I Ever), Kevin Carroll (Showtime’s Let the Right One In) and JD Pardo (Mayans M.C.) have signed on for roles in Prime Video’s reimagining of the 1989 MGM film Road House, which has entered production in the Dominican Republic.

K.J. Yossman Georgia Brown, head of European originals at Amazon Studios in the U.K., has said that even while the cost of living crisis bites and other streamers, such as HBO Max, have halted their local originals, Amazon Prime Video has no intention of cutting back. “We’ve always had a very different strategy,” Brown said during a panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival, before saying she abides by head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke’s mantra of offering a “really curated” slate. Brown emphasized her commitment to local productions, saying: “It was really critical to us that we have these local productions on the ground. Our strategy has always been ‘local for local.’”

Manori Ravindran International Editor Soumya Sriraman, the former BritBox CEO who joined Amazon to lead its Prime Video Channels business in the U.S., is stepping down after two years at the SVOD. Sources indicate the executive is still at Amazon but will be leaving imminently for another role elsewhere. Sriraman is best known for her work pioneering the best-of-British streaming service BritBox in the U.S., where she is based. The SVOD launched there in 2017 and quickly reached 250,000 subscribers in one year. By the time Sriraman departed, in October 2020, the service had more than 1.5 million subscribers. The successful U.S. launch allowed joint operators BBC Studios and ITV to expand the brand to other markets, including Australia and Canada.

John Boyega is opening up about his experience with Star Wars.

The Lord of the Rings: The is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on September 2 but eager fans will get a chance to watch the first two episodes on the big screen days before. Amazon teamed up with Cinemark to screen the debut episodes on August 31 for one night only.

Angelique Jackson Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose, who delivered a star-making performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” has nabbed her next leading role — and it’s a far-cry from the musical fare audiences have become accustomed to.DeBose will star in “House of Spoils” a new psychological thriller for Amazon Studios and Blumhouse Television, written and directed by “Blow the Man Down” filmmakers Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, based on their original idea.The film follows an ambitious chef (DeBose) who opens her first restaurant — a farm-to-table affair on a remote estate — where she battles kitchen chaos, a dubious investor and crushing self doubt. But the pressure heats up thanks to the powerful spirit of the estate’s previous owner who threatens to sabotage her at every turn.

The Western genre waned in popularity in the 1980s, but 21st-century cinema still has the occasional film that harks to its heyday. Most of these are genre hybrids, like Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” or S.

K.J. Yossman Amazon Prime Video have given fans a first look at their upcoming U.K.

William Earl Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, has been tapped to receive the Variety Vanguard Award at the Mipcom international content sales conference set for Oct. 17-20 in Cannes.The kudo recognizes television industry leaders who have made a significant contribution to the global business of entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video has added Israeli dramas Kvodo and Just for Today to its service in the U.S.