4 of the most expensive TV shows to create
When you’re watching your favourite show you may forget what went into making it and the large budgets that were set to bring it to your screen.
Some TV shows such as Game of Thrones, we expect to have a large budget which it did, of $15 million per episode by season 8. The show's success is shown in how much they made.
There have been some unexpectedly expensive shows to produce recently and each season tends to increase in price as the show gains popularity and expects to be even better for the next seasons.
4 of the most expensive shows
The Rings of Power
The Rings of Power was released in 2022 to tell the story set even before J.R.R Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings was set. This was a huge undertaking as producing a show which would impress the dedicated J.R.R. Tolkien fans as well as capture a new audience would take a large budget.
Each episode of season 1 cost approximately $60 which is more than the original trilogy altogether.
Stranger Things
Each episode of season 4 of Stranger Things cost $30. A large portion of this budget was spent on cast salaries as leading parts of, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown and Winona Ryder were being paid around $350,000 for each episode.
For comparison, in season 1 each episode was costing $6million.
The increased budget was due to larger cast salaries, better quality and greater special effects needed as well as the disruption caused by COVID. Several scenes which were shot before COVID had to be redone once they were back to filming mainly due to the young cast as they had changed since the original shoots.
The Crown
Despite the lack of special effects and huge dramatic scenes, The Crown had a large budget to create this historical show. Each episode of the Crown was costing $13 million.
Their dedication to accuracy meant pouring a large portion of the budget into creating settings and costumes.
It was reported that the Queen’s wedding dress in episode 1 cost around $37,000.
The Witcher
Another special effects filmed TV show which Netflix poured a huge budget over.
Each episode cost $10 million.
Withing the first 28 days of the Witcher being released it had been viewed from 541 million hours.
The story of the Witcher originally came from book which was turned into video games which sparked this show, supported of the books and games flew to watch this show on Netflix.
In season 2 it was reported that $16.6 million was spent on salaries for the workforce which totalled 143 members of staff.
The cost of travel to each different UK location for the scenes was also a huge cost for the show.
