Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has begun asking his Hollywood studio executives as to why they’re spending so much money after a series of pricey projects have failed to connect with domestic audiences. Chief among those is Citadel, a new global spy thriller starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jones that, while costing more than $250 million for just one season, failed to enter the top 10 most-watched streaming programs in the US, per a Bloomberg report that cites Nielsen data. What this seems to mean is that Amazon Studios may have less employees in the near future.
In the past nine months, Amazon has released at least a half-dozen pricey series that failed to deliver huge audiences. Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers and The Peripheral all cost more than $100 million to produce but failed to crack Nielsen’s list of the 10 most-watched streaming programs in the US. Even The Rings of Power ($400 million-plus), a show that attracted a large audience, failed to hold on to most of its viewers over the course of the season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.