Amazon CEO Asks His Hollywood Studio to Explain Its Big Spending

> The article also noted that a minority of the viewers who started The Rings of Power, Amazon’s most expensive project ever, finished the series.

It’s funny how something is so bad people won’t even watch it for free.

I don’t think this is a completely correct assumption, but since Amazon doesn’t give viewership numbers (or Netflix or Hulu or hbo) it’s hard to know if a show is successful or popular or profitable.

I’d like to see old fashioned Nielsen rating numbers so you can tell if 1M households watched something and could compare shows.

I’m sure some people watch an episode because the marginal cost is $0 so it’s probably equivalent to an old prime time show on ABC/CBS/NBC that would have high ratings in the beginning and then low ratings in the end. Broadcast tv was free too.

It reminds me of how friends wouldn’t even watch a movie or show on torrents and that would help me understand if a movie is good or bad (with a torrenting crowd) because people won’t even download Justice League and watch it for free.

Anyway, I’ve been surprised at how bad Amazon’s shows are considering their spend. They seem like the anti-AppleTV. AppleTV seems to spend a lot as well, but make much higher quality stuff.

I suspect it’s because AppleTV has a direct cost and budget and want to attract people to watch. And prime video is lumped into Prime membership that is probably pure profit to Amazon and just customers on auto charge year after year, so most don’t even watch video yet they have revenue from 152M US prime members [0] so Amazon is getting $21B/year and may not care about viewership, they just need to spend money.

[0] https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/amazon-prim...

I’d rather an explanation why so many expensive shows suck.

Citadel is terrible. As though the show runners have no idea what makes a show like that good. Keep in mind that you’re asking people to suspend disbelief. Don’t continually challenge that disbelief. I tried the show, said meh, tried again and turned it off in disgust. Compare to John wick (same target) doesn’t have a great story, but they ask you to suspend disbelief once and then never challenge you again. It’s got character, pathos. Not magical fucking skis.

Rings of power sucked terribly. I remember being repeatedly amazed at how such a high production value show could grab me not at all. The first fight scene was mind blowing. And yet I didn’t care. The ship they sail in the (second?) episode. Gorgeous, wonderful, compelling. I remember thinking. You built this whole unique wooden ship, and actually learned to sail it just to convince me of the authenticity of the scene. Only to throw it away five min later. The story and dialogue? Utter crap. Don’t even get me started on the narration. Bro. Go back to your notes from your first creative writing class. A quarter of the way down the first page you’ll see something that says “Show, don’t tell.” You need to actually sit down and figure out what that means.

What to know how they get maximum bang for their buck? They need someone on each project (with veto rights) who actually knows how to tell a story.

The thing they’re lacking isn’t expensive, but it does take a bit of rigor and someone with the courage and power to say no.

I’m entitled to anything I can take without harming others.

I watched "Air" with Matt Damon in the theater, and noticed it was an amazonstudios movie.

It was kind of ok, but wow it really lacked the polish that many hollywood movies have. It could have just been so much better.

I think nickle-and-diming movies will just lead to the sort of thing amazon is famous for. Lots of product, all of it cheaply made, with very little to differentiate it or make it memorable.

Personally I think there is also money in excellence.

>it did sound like he cut the division a lot of slack on spending because he liked the idea of it.

My understanding is that Bezos approved Amazon taking over the airing of the canceled The Expanse because he likes the book series the show is based on.