Arcane, the Netflix animated series based on the League of Legends game, is the most expensive animated series ever made, according to a new report from Variety. The series' 18 episodes are said to have cost a total of $250 million to produce and promote. League of Legends developer and Arcane producer Riot Games declined to confirm the figure, but told Variety:
"We're more than happy with the expense it took us to deliver a series that was worthy of our players' time."
The first season reportedly cost around $80 million to produce, while the second season cost the studio almost $100 million. Riot also reportedly spent $60 million of its own money promoting the first season, in addition to what was spent by Netflix.
"Our partnership in the entertainment industry has not changed," Riot co-founder Marc Merrill told Variety. "We never intended to operate as a traditional studio with traditional deadlines. What changed was the expectation of ourselves: we realized that getting it right took a lot longer than we expected, so we adjusted our development, production goals and teams with that in mind.”
The series follows the story of Jinx (Ella Purnell) and Vi (Hailee Steinfeld), two sisters who find themselves on opposite sides of a bitter conflict between the utopian city of Piltover and its oppressed Zaun.
"Arcane" is the only television or cinematographic project that "Riot Games" has produced so far, despite plans to expand the activity into scripted productions since five years ago. The second season of "Arcane", which is expected to be the last, starts on November 9 on Netflix, although five seasons were originally planned.
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