Amazon is Struggling to Make People Care About 'Citadel'

By Kayleigh Donaldson | TV | June 12, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | TV | June 12, 2023 |

Citadel was supposed to be a very big deal. Amazon spent a reported $300 million on the first season of the spy thriller series, executive-produced by Visionary Filmmakers the Russo Brothers and starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Before it even premiered, Amazon renewed it for a second season and started setting up multiple spin-offs in different languages. But audiences just aren’t into it, and that’s a problem for the streaming division of the almighty House of Bezos.

As Variety reported, Citadel has yet to chart in the Nielsen Top 10 of streaming shows. That only accounts for U.S. viewers, but given their status as the key market of streaming for Amazon, that’s still not great. Competition is certainly tight, with Netflix series like Queen Charlotte doing gangbusters and Ted Lasso keeping Apple TV+ in a good spot.

Prime Video has already claimed that Citadel is its second most-watched new original series outside the U.S. behind its Lord of the Rings adaptation. The focus does seem to be on building this as an international brand, given the presence of actors like Chopra and Madden, but it’s easier said than done to make a global phenomenon happen.

Amazon Studios’ head of drama series Odetta Watkins told Variety that ‘every show is not going to hit in every place on the same level, but as the franchise grows, I feel like the numbers will grow all over, including domestically.’ That talk sounds familiar, right? Sure, the first part sucks but wait until you see the rest of the franchise! Just stick around for 23 more installments, then it gets REALLY good, I swear! I’m not sure audiences have the patience for this stuff anymore. Citadel didn’t get great reviews, and when you have dozens of other things to watch every month, why settle for just OK? We’ve heard a lot of talk about the ambitious nature of Citadel but that has more to do with its business model than its creativity. If people want to watch a moderately entertaining spy series, it’s not as though streaming services are short of such options. Maybe Citadel will find its audience but I’m not sure they’ll be able to entice the needed millions of viewers by giving them more spin-offs in different languages.

But this is also a wider issue with Amazon as a streaming service. It’s been reported that they’re struggling to hold onto viewers. The Hollywood Reporter said that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power only had a 37% completion rate in the U.S., and a 45% one overseas. Its lack of awards buzz has also hampered the glow around what is allegedly the most expensive TV show of all-time. Nielsen data said that Netflix claimed the top ten stops for highest-viewed original streaming series. Amazon’s The Boys was 11th. The Rings of Power was 15th, behind Ted Lasso.

That Hollywood Reporter piece also details how Amazon Studios is ‘a confusing and frustrating place to do business’ with no grounding philosophy on what it wants its streaming platform to be. They have a lot of money and some notable hits to their name, such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Jack Ryan, but nothing really comparable to, say, Stranger Things or Squid Game. They also had a number of major names signed on to deals that went nowhere, such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s $20 million-a-year contract that has so far resulted in no new material (she is now attached to a Tomb Raider reboot as screenwriter but it’s early days on that.)

I think us viewers are creatures of habit. We know what we like and we stick to what we know, and that often means we default to whatever streaming service we use the most. For most people, that’s Netflix. I use Amazon a lot but more for add-on streaming services like MUBI and the BFI Player than any of their original stuff. It doesn’t help that we’re so overloaded with #content that picking something new to watch feels more pressurized than ever. It doesn’t help that we’re constantly worried that something we’re intrigued by is going to be canceled soon so why bother. There’s so much money on the table — and I doubt most of it is going to the writers or below-the-line workers — but a real disconnect from audiences. It’ll be interesting to see where Amazon goes with its Citadel franchise if it ever truly becomes one.