"Arcane" Sets Animated Series Expense Record - Dark Horizons
"Arcane" Sets Animated Series Expense Record - Dark Horizons
Netflix is about to release the second and final season of its critically acclaimed animated series “Arcane” – a title set in the universe of the “League of Legends” games. The show received universal acclaim, plenty of awards love and good ratings – so why in the world is it ending so soon? A new [...
The feature piece, which goes into the finances of Riot Games, has revealed the company spent approximately $250 million to produce and promote Arcane’s two seasons which totaled 18 episodes.
That works out to a cost of around $13.9 million per episode – the highest amount of money ever spent on an animated series on streaming or linear TV.
The trade says the reason was that the “profligate spending and unrealized ambitions are a reflection of the company’s inexperience navigating the intricacies of entertainment production.”
In total the first season cost over $80 million to produce and $60 million to promote. The second season came in around $100 million and entered production without scripts for every episode, causing major delays.