April 8, 2008 - A titanic battle occurred this past Saturday in the world of cable television. Spike TV ran the three Star Wars prequels in a head-to-head match up against the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which aired on TNT. These marathon airings of what could arguably be called the biggest movie franchises of all time pulled in huge viewers (in cable numbers anyway). However, when the smoke cleared, and Vader had been thrown into the fires of Mount Doom (wait…is that right?) – a clear victor emerged.

If you're wondering which is "The One Franchise to Rule Them All" – the correct answer would be Star Wars. Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith posted the best numbers, with 4.2 million viewers. The most stunning in the numbers – highly touted by Spike (TV, not Lee…so we're clear) – is that Phantom Menace drew 2.8 million viewers, while Lord of the Rings overall averaged 2.7 million. The average of all three Star Wars prequels was 3.5 million. Somewhere, someone wearing authentic Mithril armor is weeping.

What does this mean? Mostly, it just means that people like watching Star Wars, which is hardly news. The greater context, however, is that if these movies can post numbers like these – that bodes well for the upcoming Clone Wars and Live Action series George Lucas plans to unveil later this year, and 2010 - respectively. At the same time, the numbers for Lord of the Rings are nothing to sneeze at (which makes the Star Wars numbers all the more striking). Could there be a Middle Earth Chronicles in our future?

- Lucas Film
"Hey, Frodo! Come get some."