Seems like Westeros is going through a recession.
On Friday, Variety reported that HBO spent under $20 million per episode to make the hotly-anticipated Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, which is set to begin on August 21 of this year.
The $20 million price tag per episode compares to Game of Thrones’ approximate total season cost of $100 million. When the show began in 2011, episodes cost around $6 million to make, with the number reaching 15 million by the final season in 2019. Considering the changes in the streaming landscape since the Thrones series finale and the quality of special effects necessary for a project of this caliber, $20 million is, somewhat unbelievably, being touted as…not that much money? The Variety article points to the price tag as a sign of production efficiency.
Indeed, compared to the staggering $465 million cost to produce the eight-episode first season of Amazon’s upcoming The Lord of the Rings spin-off, $20 million per episode begins to seem conservative after all. Titled The Rings of Power, the new series premieres on September 2 and will likely be something of a genre competitor to House of the Dragon.
The Variety report comes in the wake of news that Netflix shelled out a whopping $30 million per episode to produce the final season of Stranger Things, out this summer. While the number itself may not be eyebrow raising for an ambitious, special-effects-laden show like the Duffer Brothers’ hit sci-fi series, it is a massive expenditure for a company in crisis.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the streaming giant actually lost subscribers for the first time in a decade—200,000 of them. The significant drop in users caused Netflix’s share price to plummet, down 35% on Thursday. It’s just the latest sign of struggle from the one-time leader in the streaming space, which has caught flak for canceling several beloved shows (RIP, The Baby-Sitters Club, you were perfect) and threatening to crack down on password sharing.
To paraphrase a certain popular, dragon-centric fantasy series, when you play the game of streaming, you win or you die.
