Season 2 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was the second most-watched streaming original series in the U.S. between Aug. 30 and Sept. 2 — the four days of Labor Day weekend — according to Luminate.

This marked the first streaming weekend of the season, but that doesn’t include the opening day on August 29. Amazon Prime Video has released three episodes so far, which has a cumulative runtime of 204 minutes. The 553.5 million minutes watched for the episodes during that time translates to an estimated 2.7 million views.

The only series to beat “The Rings of Power,” according to Luminate’s measurement, was “Worst Ex Ever,” which was watched for 633.3 million minutes during the same time period. But because the Netflix series is longer than the first three episodes of “Rings of Power,” which are 230 minutes long, the two series were more evenly matched in terms of estimated views. “Worst Ex Ever” finished the weekend with 2.8 million views, calculated by dividing total viewing time by the project’s runtime.

It’s likely that “Rings of Power” will continue to rank high on the charts in the coming weeks, as five more episodes will air on Thursdays, though Season 2 has had a slightly slower start compared to the series’ 2022 debut. According to Luminate, Season 1’s Labor Day opener generated 1.2 billion minutes watched in four days, or 8.9 million estimated views when factoring in the 132-minute running time of the two episodes initially made available. It’s reasonable to expect that a major IP title would see a drop between Seasons 1 and 2 — a comparable title, HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” saw 7.8 million viewers for its second season opener compared to 10 million for its series premiere — though “Rings of Power’s” was steeper.