Television is a kind of one big number game. On the one hand, profit from advertising and repeat impressions. On the other - the cost of costumes, visual effects, post-processing and acting fees. We present to your attention the top 10 most expensive series of all time.
10. The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)
Genre: comedy, romance
Movie Search Rating: 8,6
IMDb Rating: 8,1
Country: USA
Producer: M. Sendrouski et al.
Music: Barenaked Ladies et al.
Series Price: $ 9 million
The list of the most expensive series in the history of cinema opens up not at all a luxurious historical drama (although there will be enough of them in the top 10) and not a fantasy costume, but a story about two nerds and part-time physicists, their complicated friends and a difficult personal life. It would seem that there could be so much?
It's all about fees. If in the first seasons the actors Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaylee Cuoco received $ 60 thousand per episode, then as the show grew in popularity, their fees also grew. In the end, they began to receive a million per series.
However, the CBS company was not at a loss and tried to recapture this money through advertising. For scrolling a 30-second video in 2013, 326 thousand dollars were required to be paid. In the final season, prices fell slightly, but still remained impressive - $ 258,500 for one video. But the record was broken by advertising prices in the final episode series - from 1.2 to 1.5 million dollars.
9. Marco Polo (2014 - 2016)
Genre: history, adventures
Movie Search Rating: 8,0
IMDb Rating: 8
Country: USA
Producer: Daniel Minahan et al.
Music: Eric V. Hachikian, Peter Found
Series Price: $ 9 million
Historical films - this is not a drama about a girl from a neighboring porch and a local bully. It needs scope, visuals, costumes, appropriate furnishings, and just a huge number of hours of post-processing.
And it is especially sad when all this 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. As they say, Netflix lost about $ 200 million on this.
8. Rome (2005-2007)
Genre: historical drama
Movie Search Rating: 8,3
IMDb Rating: 8,7
Country: United Kingdom, USA
Producer: Michael Apted, Michael Salomon et al.
Music: Jeff Beale
Series Price: $ 9 million
The Roman Empire is going through troubled times. Caesar took Gaul and is going to return to Rome after a long absence. Patricians squeeze the last juice from the plebs and hook each other in the struggle for power, and Pompey the Great begins to quietly envy the popularity of his eminent friend ...
This is the setting of one of the highest budget TV shows in history. True, the series did not save hundreds of expensive and extravagant costumes, made with the utmost care of the scenery, recreating ancient Rome - from the Senate to the slums. He fell under a financial burden, and a finishing blow was inflicted by low ratings. The magnificent scenery of "Rome" have not reached our times either - they were completely destroyed by the 2007 fire.
7. Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
Genre: fantasy
Movie Search Rating: 9,0
IMDb Rating: 9,3
Country: USA, UK
Producer: David Nutter, Alan Taylor et al.
Music: Ramin Javadi
Series Price: 10 million dollars.
One of the most beloved TV shows 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 the age-related audience. 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 costumers of the "Game", and even add famous actors and post-processing costs here, it’s clear where the figure of $ 10 million came from.
And the longer the series lasted, the higher the stakes - they say that in the last, eighth season, each series cost $ 15 million.
6. Friends (1994-2004)
Genre: comedy, romance
Movie Search Rating: 9,3
IMDb Rating: 8,9
Country: USA
Producer: Gary Halvorson, Kevin Bright et al.
Music: Michael Skloff, Ellie Willis
Series Price: 10 million
Amazingly, the series about our contemporaries in terms of price far jumped all sorts of historical and fantasy worlds. And why? Because untwisted actors are expensive. Closer to the finale, for some miserable 25 minutes, stars flashed thanks to the series - Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer - each received a million. Here we add the usual filming costs and get a very impressive figure.
Even today, the influx 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
Movie Search Rating: 8,0
IMDb Rating: 8,3
Country: USA
Producer: Edward Bianchi, Mac Williams et al.
Music: Elliott Wheeler
Series Price: 11 million dollars.
The musical about the difficult everyday life of adolescents 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 the biggest hit on Netflix’s pocket was the right to play the funky and R&B hits that they played in the series.
And you could not do without them, because the series told about the extinction of disco culture and the birth of hip-hop in the famous New York clubs GBGB and Studio 54. And all this against the backdrop of the Bronx ghetto, drug mafia, clandestine arms dealers, poverty and disco tinsel .
4. Brothers in Arms (2001)
Genre: war drama
Movie Search Rating: 8,6
IMDb Rating: 9,4
Country: USA
Producer: Steven Spielberg, David Frankel, Tom Hanks et al.
Music: Michael Kamen
Series Price: $ 12.5 million
Historical film? Filming abroad? Famous actors? The Brothers in Arms correspond to all three of these 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 authenticity (note that, first of all, when choosing actors he was guided by their physical resemblance to real soldiers), then at the output we get an extras of more than two thousand bodies and high-quality and expensive inventory.
The result was worthy of the money invested. An excellent military drama came into being, 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. The Crown (2016-present)
Genre: historical drama
Movie Search Rating: 8,2
IMDb Rating: 8,7
Country: United Kingdom, USA
Producer: Benjamin Caron, Philip Martin et al.
Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams, Lorne Balf, Martin Phipps
Series Price: 13 million dollars.
The very first episode of the series from the life of Elizabeth II already cost Netflix a fortune. The filmmakers decided to recreate the royal wedding dress, and this one copy cost 37 thousand dollars.
The farther, the more zippy - more than 7 thousand costumes were made for the costumed historical biography. Apparently, to have them where to store, a copy of Buckingham Palace was created for the filming. Real size.
According to unofficial information, Netflix has spent more than $ 130 million on the first two seasons of the series and plans to spend more. The fourth season of the series is currently being filmed.
2. Ambulance (1994-2009)
Genre: drama, melodrama
Movie Search Rating: 8
IMDb Rating: 7,7
Country: USA
Producer: Christopher Chulak, Jonathan Kaplan et al.
Music: Marty Dwich, James Newton Howard et al.
Series Price: 13 million dollars.
One of the most expensive movie series in the world tells the story of the workers of an ordinary American hospital. It turned out that along with saving human lives, doctors in everyday life are doing basically the same thing as ordinary mortals - converge, diverge, intrigue, swear, make peace and help each other.
Separately, it is worth noting the excellent work of medical consultants, thanks to which for all 15 seasons in the series not a single medical inaccuracy was noticed.
But it seems like a series about our time, it should not be so expensive? But no. If the first seasons were relatively budgetary, 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 you add here that Tarantino himself shot one of the series, it becomes clear why the Ambulance is in second place among the most expensive series of all time.
1. The Pacific Ocean (2010)
Genre: war drama
Movie Search Rating: 8,2
IMDb Rating: 8,3
Country: USA
Producer: Jeremy Podvesva, Timothy Van Patten et al.
Music: Blake Neely, Jeff Zanelli, Hans Zimmer
Series Price: $ 21.7 million
The executive producer of this series was Steven Spielberg. And if his goal is to recreate an episode from world history in its entirety, then he will not stand for the price. As I did not stint on expenses in a small series "Pacific Ocean". It lasted only one season, totaled 10 episodes. What made him so expensive?
- Each battle scene (and there are many of them in the series according to the memoirs of the Marines of the Second World War), Spielberg wanted to shoot as accurately, reliably and spectacularly as possible.
- According to one of the filming participants, landing on the island of Peleliu alone cost $ 5 million
- A crowd of more than three hundred people (pay attention not to computer dolls, but to real living people who needed to live somewhere and have something to increase expenses accordingly) remained on a narrow strip of sand for about five days.
As a result, the Pacific Ocean became the most expensive mini-series in history.
