Warner Bros. Discovery Clears Up Rings of Power ‘Trolling’ Controversy

Is this the controversy to rule them all? Warner Bros. Discovery says not so fast.

The company is in the midst of relaunching its HBO Max streaming service as Max, and a new marketing campaign for the rebrand recently had the internet thinking it may also be taking shots at rivals.

WBD’s three-phase marketing campaign kicked off on Monday with the tagline “The one to watch.” And some of the campaign creative includes Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen sitting on the Iron Throne with the motto: “The one to watch when you want to rule them all.”

The line seems to play off the Lord of the Rings phrase, “One Ring to rule them all,” which had viewers and media outlets speculating that WBD and Max were trolling Amazon’s Prime Video and its Rings of Power series, which has been hit with bad press lately about its less than 50% completion rate.

However, it seems WBD is leaving any trolls to their respective fantasy series.

According to Warner Bros. Discovery streaming chief marketing officer Patrizio “Pato” Spagnoletto, the creative had nothing to do with Prime Video or Lord of the Rings, despite WBD also recently announcing future Lord of the Rings films.

“There was nothing deliberate about that,” Spagnoletto explained to Adweek, adding the company wanted to have dragon-focused creative, but it didn’t work mechanically.

Because the dragon didn’t happen, the company went with an image of Daenerys, not thinking it’d be controversial.

“There was no teasing, no trolling, no nothing. It was literally just using one of our iconic imagery with one of the lines that I thought went with it,” the marketer added.

‘Controversy’ is coming

Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power, and HBO’s Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, launched within weeks of each other last fall, causing a media frenzy about the possible rivalry between the two high-profile (and high-budget) fantasy series. Though the Max ad renewed rivalry talk, it seems any trolling was the unintended consequence of a dragon being unavailable in the artwork.

The company likely doesn’t have time for trolling anyway, with OOH campaigns, including the Game of Thrones creative, launching in New York and L.A., alongside digital and static campaigns before the May 23 launch of Max.

However, with both House of the Dragon and Rings of Power returning for second seasons and WBD producing another Game of Thrones prequel, if you think the rivalry talk is over, you know nothing, Jon Snow.