The first season of Amazon The Lord of the Rings The TV show honestly costs the retail giant $ 465 million to produce. Just to have you read about it again, this price is for one season only and in the above number there is not a decimal missing. “This will be the biggest television series ever made,” said New Zealand’s Minister for Economic Development and Tourism said.
But this honor was already something of a well-known amount, after Amazon spent $ 250 million to secure the rights to the franchise in 2017, kicking off a round of stories that made the yet-to-be-produced show “the most expensive” television production in history does not declare, with the big B-number running its rumors of five seasons. This may be appropriate as it’s another episode Lord of the Ringsadjacent production – Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy – currently holds the record for the most expensive film production in history, about $ 623 million (after tax credits).
To make a more lembas-to-lembas comparison, here are some other great numbers:
- The last and most expensive season of that other fantasy TV series, Game of Thrones, costs only $ 90 million, or $ 15 million per episode.
- Disney has “about 100 million” on the first season of The Mandalorian.
- Disney’s Marvel series is likely to cost as much as $ 25 million per episode, as there are nine episodes of it. WandaVision, would amount to a maximum of $ 225 million. Chump change!
- Adjusted for inflation, it cost Kevin Costner about $ 300 million in 1995 to build an entire island off the coast of Hawaii Water world.
- The US government plans to spend $ 451 million in 2021 to explore the moon, or about one The Lord of the Rings season.
Of course, because this is a new show, there are some upfront costs to be expected in the first season, such as sets and costumes, which could pick up the future seasons of the future. But this is really just a source of concern if you think as a non-billionaire. With a net worth of $ 193 billion, Amazon’s (outgoing) CEO Jeff Bezos can personally ensure that the series continues there and back (and again and again and again) for about 400 seasons before things start to get a little tight.