'We are dirt cheap': Arcane's showrunners say the 'most expensive' animated series ever produced isn't that expensive, if you think about it
Arcane's second season is out and, having watched the first trio of episodes, looks to be shaping up well—both in terms of its visuals and, well, some disproportionately hype storytelling for something that spawned from League of Legends. Not that the game doesn't have detailed and interesting lore, but 'a landmark for animation' wasn't the bar I was expecting the series to cross back in 2021, and it's still surprising me now.
Despite that, its second season will be its last, and there's been some murmuring it's got something to do with the fact that it took over $250 million to make and market. That's a big, boggling number when written out like that, but it's actually less than it seems on first blush, which is something showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee told Gamesradar in an interview last week.
«That number does include marketing costs associated with the release,» Linke says, «Which is not part of the budget of Arcane.» That's not to say it wasn't pricey, though, as Linke adds: «Arcane is a really expensive animated series—which was the point. Our dream was to create an animated series that has the fidelity of what you see in animated movies.»
It's at this point that Yee chimes in with a thought I'm discovering is more reasonable by the second: «If you compare us to animated movies, we are dirt cheap.»
While $250 million might not seem «dirt cheap» unless you're Scrooge McDuck, when it comes to making anything at this scale and runtime, it's just above average—record-setting for an animated series, sure, but not even a chart topper when it comes to TV. For the sake of argument, let's assume that Arcane's marketing and distribution budget cost 50% of what it cost to make, which is typically what you'll spend on movies.
That thins the raw production heft of Arcane to around $166 million. It'll have around 18 episodes in total across its two seasons, which is $9.2 million per 40+ minute episode. While that's definitely up there, here are a few examples of
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