It’s 8-episodes-a-season, so 40 hours.

I found a satisfactory way to cut Game of Thrones seasons into films - and GoT does a far better job than this one thus far imo - so I’m fairly confident one movie per Rings of Power season shall be conclusive enough. There’s way too much filler in the first two episodes alone that I’d say they have 50-55 minutes worth of content combined.

However, I like shaping things along the way and who knows - perhaps we’ll realize that there are tons of things to completely remove (or keep) further down the line.

And perhaps you are right in that one season will need two or three films. But, at least my goal will be 1-film-a-season (if plausible). Three episodes in, and I only really like the Harfoot girl, Elrond, the Nùmenôr Captain and possibly Galadriel’s human raft bud. Galadriel is a must to keep obviously, but I think the main chess players are on the board now and a structure based on those characters along with a hard focus on the (very thin) plot I think will make for one very strong movie in the end. But for now, yes, that’s just a guess.