Netflix will certainly be hoping for gigantic numbers for Arcane’s second season, as the entire series is apparently the most high-priced animated series ever.
League of Legends developer Riot and Netflix are obviously very successful companies and likely have a lot of cash to spend on various projects. We’ve seen this many times with Netflix spending tons of money on shows at obscene amounts in hopes of attracting more subscribers with gigantic series. Arcane is obviously a pretty astute show considering the massive pre-existing audience for League of Legends, but it wasn’t clear how much it would cost to create such a show. Except for the up-to-date report from Diversityinformation was shared that both seasons, consisting of a total of 18 episodes, cost Riot an absurd $250 million.
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For context, that means it’s the most high-priced animated series ever made, regardless of whether it airs on streaming or classic television. According to sources who spoke to Variety, these expenses appear to reflect Riot’s inexperience when it comes to producing entertainment (presumably TV entertainment, given that games are, you know, entertainment and League of Legends is a huge success). Riot co-founder Marc Merrill emphasized in a statement to Variety that the developer’s “entertainment ambitions have not changed.
“We never intended to operate like a traditional studio with traditional schedules. As we learned more, our expectations of ourselves changed: we realized that getting it right was taking much longer than we initially expected, so we recalibrated with this in mind for our development, output goals and teams.”
Merrill did not directly comment on the cost of the show, but stated, “We are more than happy with the expenses we incurred to provide a show worthy of our players’ time,” so whether it was as much as it appears to be a financial success or not is a bit irrelevant for Riot.
Season 2 of Arcane is also the final season of the series, although Riot intends to make more series, so perhaps future series will take a broader look at the world of League of Legends – but they will probably cost less.
