The most expensive TV show in history has a production budget of nearly ₹500 crore per episode. Television was long considered a poor cousin of cinema. Since the screen was smaller, the scale was too. The biggest TV shows paled in comparison to big-budget films, be it in India or even the West. But that changed with the advent of streaming as shows got bigger budgets and much larger canvases to play with. The biggest of them all dwarfs even the most expensive films made in the world.
World’s most expensive TV show
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is history’s most expensive TV show. The show’s first season premiered on Amazon Prime Video in 2022, and Deadline reported that it cost Amazon Studios a staggering $1 billion ( ₹8300 crore). The cost included the purchase of the rights and the promotions for season 1. Collider reported that the production cost alone was as high as $465 million (over ₹3800 crore). Each episode of the eight-episode season cost a staggering $58 million ( ₹480 crore).
How Rings of Power towers above big films
The most expensive film ever made is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which had a production budget of $447 million, less than that of the Rings of Power. The original Lord of the Rings trilogy had a production cost of just $260 million for the three films. The spinoff show has moved much ahead in comparison.
Indian films lag way behind. The most expensive Indian films – Kalki 2898 AD, RRR, and Adipurush – have production budgets between $70-75 million, just 1/15th of the Rings of Power’s season 1 landing cost. In fact, such is the immense scale of the show that the per-episode production cost ($48 million) is higher than the budgets of some of the biggest Indian films such as Brahmastra Part One ($45 million), Singham Again ($42 million), and Jawan ($36 million).
Based on the appendices of JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power tells the story of the rise of Sauron, the primary antagonist of Tolkien’s work. The show is set centuries before the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and introduces several new characters along with old fan favourites. The first season received mixed reviews but good ratings. A second season, better received, was released earlier this year.
