• by Wayne Friedman , September 6, 2022

Amazon Prime Video says it broke “all previous records” on the first day of release for its highly touted prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” over the recent weekend -- pulling in 25 million global viewers.

The series launched in more than 240 countries on the streaming service.

The epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

Episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” will launch weekly through its October 14 season finale on Prime Video.

The eight-episode series reportedly cost Amazon a nearly $1 billion -- $715 million in production costs and $250 million for the rights to the epic fantasy saga. Analysts believe it to be one of the most expensive TV productions in history.

Recently, another prequel of a fantasy/adventure drama, “Game of Thrones” called “House of the Dragon,” pulled in nearly 10 million linear and streaming viewers in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Asia regions. HBO claims the show was its biggest series debut in HBO history.

“Dragon” was HBO’s best result for any episode since May 2019.

The final episode of “Game of Thrones” scored a series record of 19.3 million viewers, which included viewing on HBO cable channel, and HBO Go and HBO Now apps.