Netflix is sure to be hoping to pull in some big numbers with Arcane season 2, as the entire show is apparently the most expensive animated series ever.
League of Legends developer Riot and Netflix are obviously both very successful companies, and likely have quite a bit of cash to spend on various projects. We’ve seen that with Netflix plenty before, spending tons on shows in obscene amounts, in the hopes to bring in more subscribers with some big shows. Arcane is obviously quite a smart show to try and do that with, given the pre-existing massive League of Legends audience, but it hasn’t been clear just how much the show cost to make. Except in a new report from Variety, it’s been shared that both seasons, which run for a total of 18 episodes, cost Riot specifically a ridiculous $250 million.
For context, that makes it the most expensive animated series ever made, whether that be on streaming or traditional TV. According to sources that spoke with Variety, this spending is apparently a reflection of Riot’s inexperience when it comes to entertainment production (presumably TV entertainment, given that games are, you know, entertainment, and League of Legends is wildly successful). Riot co-founder Marc Merrill did stress to Variety in a statement that the developer’s “ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed.
“We were never intending to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines. What did change as we learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realized that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals and teams with that in mind.”
Merrill didn’t comment on the cost of the show directly, but did say “We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time,” so whether or not it was as much of a hit as it needed to be financially or not is a bit irrelevant to Riot it seems.
Arcane season 2 is also the show’s final season, though Riot does have intentions to make more shows, so perhaps we’ll get a broader look at the world of League of Legends in future series – they’ll probably cost less, though.