Television is kind of one big numbers game. On the one hand, the revenue from ads and repeat impressions. On the other hand, the cost of costumes, visuals, post-production and acting fees. We present to your attention the top 10 most expensive TV series of all time.
10. The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)
Genre: comedy, melodrama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,6
IMDb rating: 8,1
Country: USA
Producer: M. Sendrowski et al.
Music: Barenaked Ladies et al.
Price per batch: $ 9 million.
What opens the list of the most expensive TV series in the history of cinema is not a luxurious historical drama (although there will be enough of them in the top 10) or costume fantasy, but a story about two nerds and physicists in combination, their complicated friends and a difficult personal life. It would seem that there could be so expensive?
It's all about the fees. If in the first seasons actors Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco received $ 60 thousand per episode, then as the popularity of the show grew, so did their fees. In the end, they began to receive a million per episode.
However, CBS was not taken aback and tried to recapture this money through advertising. For scrolling a 30-second video in 2013, it was required to pay 326 thousand dollars. In the final season, prices dropped slightly, but still remained impressive - $ 258,500 per video. But the record was broken by the ad rates in the final episode of the episode - from 1.2 to 1.5 million dollars.
9.Marco Polo (2014 - 2016)
Genre: history, adventure
Kinopoisk rating: 8,0
IMDb rating: 8
Country: USA
Producer: Daniel Minahan et al.
Music: Eric V. Hachikian, Peter Found
Price per batch: $ 9 million.
Historical films are not a drama about a girl from the next doorway and a local bully. You need scope, visuals, costumes, appropriate setting, and just a huge number of hours of post-processing.
And it is especially sad when all these invested money and titanic efforts do not pay off. So "Marco Polo", released on the screens of "Netflix" about five years ago, turned out to be a dummy. Each of the 10 episodes cost the creators $ 9 million, but the audience did not appreciate them. Netflix is said to have lost about $ 200 million on this.
8. Rome (2005-2007)
Genre: historical drama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,3
IMDb rating: 8,7
Country: UK, USA
Producer: Michael Apted, Mikael Salomon and others
Music: Jeff Beale
Price per batch: $ 9 million.
The Roman Empire is in troubled times. Caesar took Gaul and is about to return to Rome after a long absence. The patricians squeeze the last juices out of the plebeians and sit up each other in the struggle for power, and Pompey the Great begins to secretly envy the popularity of his eminent friend ...
This is the setting for one of the biggest budget TV shows in history. True, hundreds of expensive and extravagant costumes, meticulously executed scenery that recreated ancient Rome - from the Senate to the slums - did not save the series. He fell under financial burden, and the final blow came from low ratings. The magnificent scenery of "Rome" has not reached our times either - they were completely destroyed by the fire of 2007.
7. Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
Genre: fantasy
Kinopoisk rating: 9,0
IMDb rating: 9,3
Country: USA, UK
Producer: David Nutter, Alan Taylor et al.
Music: Ramin Javadi
Price per batch: $ 10 million.
One of the most beloved TV series of all time became an event in the cinematic world and loudly declared that fantasy can be interesting not only for children, but also for an older viewer. Of course, it cost the creators a pretty penny. Costume films are generally expensive, and if you approach this with such taste and care as the costumes of "Game", and even add here famous actors and post-processing costs - it is clear where the figure of $ 10 million came from.
And the longer the series lasted, the higher the stakes - they say, in the last, eighth season, each episode cost $ 15 million.
6. Friends (1994-2004)
Genre: comedy, melodrama
Kinopoisk rating: 9,3
IMDb rating: 8,9
Country: USA
Producer: Gary Halvorson, Kevin Bright et al.
Music: Michael Skloff, Ellie Willis
Price per batch: 10 million
Amazingly, the series about our contemporaries in terms of price has far surpassed all sorts of historical and fantasy worlds. And all why? Because promoted actors are expensive. Closer to the finale, in a paltry 25 minutes, the stars that burst out thanks to the series - Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer - received a million each. Add to this the usual shooting costs and get a very impressive figure.
Even today, the flow of money into the pockets of the magnificent six does not stop. Each of them receives 2% of repeat impressions, which brings them about $ 20 million a year.
5. Annealing (2016-2017)
Genre: musical, drama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,0
IMDb rating: 8,3
Country: USA
Producer: Edward Bianchi, Mac Williams et al.
Music: Elliott Wheeler
Price per batch: $ 11 million.
A musical about the hard days of teenagers in the capitalist jungle of New York cost Netflix dearly. According to experts, singing and dancing boys and girls cost the studio $ 120 million for the entire season. The reason is expensive musical numbers and luxurious costumes. But what hit Netflix's pocket the hardest was the rights to play the hit funk and R&B hits that were on the show.
And without them it was impossible to do, because the series told about the extinction of disco culture and the emergence of hip-hop in the famous New York clubs GBGB and Studio 54. And all this against the backdrop of the ghetto in the Bronx, drug mafia, underground arms dealers, poverty and disco tinsel ...
4. Brothers in Arms (2001)
Genre: war drama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,6
IMDb rating: 9,4
Country: USA
Producer: Steven Spielberg, David Frankel, Tom Hanks, etc.
Music: Michael Kamen
Price per batch: $ 12.5 million
Historical film? Filming abroad? Famous actors? “Brothers in Arms” meets all these three criteria, which significantly increase the cost of shooting. And if we add here the meticulousness of executive producer Steven Spielberg and his desire for historical accuracy (note that, first of all, when choosing actors, he was guided by their physical resemblance to real soldiers), then at the exit we will get extras of more than two thousand bodies and high-quality and expensive inventory.
The result was worth the investment. An excellent war drama was born, and the play of actors Damien Lewis, Donnie Wahlberg and other participants in the film project was highly appreciated by both critics and viewers.
3. Crown (2016 - present)
Genre: historical drama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,2
IMDb rating: 8,7
Country: UK, USA
Producer: Benjamin Caron, Philip Martin et al.
Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams, Lorne Balfe, Martin Phipps
Price per batch: $ 13 million.
The very first episode of the series from the life of Elizabeth II has already cost Netflix a fortune. The filmmakers decided to recreate the royal wedding dress, and this one copy cost $ 37 thousand.
The farther, the more challenging - more than 7 thousand costumes were sewn for a costume historical biography. Apparently, so that they were somewhere to store, a copy of Buckingham Palace was created for filming. Real size.
According to unofficial information, Netflix spent over $ 130 million on the first two seasons of the series.dollars and plans to spend more. The fourth season of the series is currently being filmed.
2. Ambulance (1994-2009)
Genre: drama, melodrama
Kinopoisk rating: 8
IMDb rating: 7,7
Country: USA
Producer: Christopher Chulak, Jonathan Kaplan et al.
Music: Marty Davich, James Newton Howard et al.
Price per batch: $ 13 million.
One of the most expensive film series in the world tells about the life of the workers of an ordinary American hospital. It turned out that along with saving human lives, doctors in their daily lives do in general the same thing as ordinary mortals - converge, diverge, intrigue, swear, reconcile and help each other.
Separately, it is worth noting the excellent work of medical consultants, thanks to whom not a single medical inaccuracy was noticed in the series for all 15 seasons.
But it seems like a TV series about our time, shouldn't it be so expensive? But no. If the first seasons were relatively budgetary, then the subsequent ones (when the actors began to gain popularity) became more and more expensive due to fees. The series practically brought George Clooney and Noah Wiley to the stage of the cinematic world. And if we add here that one of the episodes was shot by Tarantino himself, it becomes clear why "Ambulance" is in second place among the most expensive TV series of all times and peoples.
1. Pacific Ocean (2010)
Genre: war drama
Kinopoisk rating: 8,2
IMDb rating: 8,3
Country: USA
Producer: Jeremy Podeswa, Timothy Van Patten et al.
Music: Blake Neely, Jeff Zanelli, Hans Zimmer
Price per batch: $ 21.7 million.
The series was executive produced by Steven Spielberg. And if its goal is to recreate this or that episode from world history in its entirety, then it will not stand behind the price. As well as not stingy on the costs in the small series "Pacific Ocean". It lasted only one season, consisted of 10 episodes. What made him so dear?
- Each battle scene (and there are many of them in the series according to the recollections of the marines of the Second World War) Spielberg wanted to shoot as accurately, reliably and spectacularly as possible.
- According to one of the filmmakers, landing on the island of Peleliu alone cost $ 5 million
- A crowd of more than three hundred people (note, not computer dolls, but real living people who had to live somewhere and eat something, which accordingly increased costs) remained on a narrow strip of sand for about five days.
As a result, "Pacific Ocean" became the most expensive miniseries in history.