“Citadel”: The Expensive Budget Of The Prime Video Series

After “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, “Citadel” It has been the biggest bet for Amazon Studios and Prime Video. Although it doesn’t beat JRR Tolkien’s adaptation in terms of budget, the new series is worth several hundred million dollars. The high cost has not only been due to the special effects, but for other reasons that we will explain here.

On September 1, 2022, the streaming platform released the fantasy series and it became the most expensive, with an investment of 465 million dollars, of which more than half was spent on the payment of rights.

Now Prime Video has set a new challenge with the production that stars Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The program has become the second most expensive, despite only having six episodes.

Before continuing, take a look here. trailer for “Citadel”.

The first season of “Citadel”, which is composed of 6 episodes, has had a budget of 300 million dollars.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter September 2022, a series of complications in production generated a cost overrun of almost 200 million.

The reason behind the high cost of making “Citadel” is actually a combination of various factors such as the long-term plan to create a franchise and international locations. However, what had the greatest impact on inflating the budget bag were problems in the creative team.

First, Amazon Studios sought out a creative team of experts in blockbuster and action titles. Therefore, within its long list of executive producers are Anthony and Joe Russothe brothers who made “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” a reality.

They had also hired Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, who wrote and produced “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” as writers for the show.

Of course, these types of professionals required higher-than-average pay.

According to the THR report, problems began to arise when the Russo brothers became more involved in the making of “Citadel” and had different visions from the writers.

This would have generated two separate camps in the making, which ended up affecting the program. Appelbaum and Nemec left the project, along with a good part of the team, which caused the series to be delayed and many parts had to be redone.

Amazon had to hire David Weil (“Hunters”) as the new scriptwriter and they did a total overhaul of the progress.