If you want to ask which TV series is the most expensive in your history? You will surely think of "Game of Thrones" and the cost of the final season single episode of "Power Tour" is 15 million US dollars. It has also become the most expensive American drama in history.
But this record will soon be broken, and it will be surpassed by several dramas. With the successive launch of Apple and Disney's streaming services in November, the upper limit of the production cost of American dramas has been refreshed again.
According to the "Hollywood Reporter" (Hollywood Reporter), Disney has developed three Marvel series: "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier", "Wanda Vision" and "Hawkeye". The single set will be as high as 25 million. U.S. dollars, based on 6-8 episodes per season, the cost of a drama is 150-200 million U.S. dollars.
The production cost of US$150 million to US$200 million is already equivalent to the cost of a Marvel movie. Except for major productions such as "Avengers 4", the budget of a general Marvel single-player super-English movie generally does not exceed US$200 million. The production costs of "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and "Captain Marvel" released this year are 1.6. Billion US dollars and 152 million US dollars.
In addition to the Marvel spin-offs, Disney’s other big IP "Star Wars" will also launch the live-action drama "Mandalorian" for the first time. The single-package version also reaches 15 million US dollars. 1 billion dollars was invested in the drama.
The equally wealthy Apple’s investment in original dramas is also unambiguous. The drama "Seeing" starring Jason Momoa ("Sea King") costs as much as $17 million per hour, and Jennifer Annis starred The budget for a single episode of "Morning Storm" also has a budget of 15 million US dollars.
It is worth noting that the cost of clothing and special effects for fashion comedies like "Morning Storm" is definitely not as high as in "Game of Thrones", but the production The cost is still so high, partly because of the high pay for the actors. It is said that the single episode of the two starring "Morning Storm" is as high as 2 million US dollars.
In addition, Apple has also invested in the adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi classic "The Base". This magnificent work is similar to the "Three Body", because the abstract artistic conception has always been difficult to be adapted. I think the production cost of such a sci-fi drama should not be lower than "Seeing" and "Morning Storm."
American dramas are burning more and more money, which has a certain relationship with the joining of technology companies. According to statistics, before the film and television business in Silicon Valley, the average cost of American dramas was US$3-6 million. The first season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" The integration cost is $6 million.
later launched streaming media services with Netflix and Amazon, which greatly intensified the competition in the TV drama industry. In order to compete for users, they have not hesitated to spend money to launch major productions. In 2016 alone, three American dramas with a single-episode production cost of 10 million US dollars emerged, including the sixth season of "Game of Thrones" (HBO) and "Western World". "The first season (HBO) and "Young Hip Hop Dream" (the first season).
is also a turning point this year. The fierce competition among new streaming services such as Apple TV+, Disney+ and Warner’s HBO Max easily broke the 15 million threshold for a single episode, allowing American TV shows to burn more than movies. Era.
But the US$25 million record may be broken again in the near future. It is reported that Amazon will spend US$1 billion to produce the drama version of "The Lord of the Rings", which is expected to be broadcast in 2021 and will become the most expensive TV series in history.
However, this kind of money burning may not be able to reap the next "Game of Thrones". Although the $900 version of "Super Sense Hunting" has a good reputation, it was still cut by Netflix due to poor ratings and HBO. Hopefully, "Westworld", which took over "Game of Thrones", did not perform as expected.
Of course, as an audience, most of them don't care about this. After all, the more money American TV shows, the more good shows we can watch.
title picture from: Disney
