Arcane has been a massive hit for Netflix and Riot Games — an unabashed critical darling that’s been embraced by League of Legends fans and otherwise — but it didn’t come cheap.
Variety revealed some pretty jaw-dropping numbers in a new report on Wednesday, revolving around why Riot’s expansion into film and television has been stunted despite Arcane’s success. A lot of that has to do with budget; according to Variety’s sources, it cost $250 million to make and market Arcane’s two seasons. That’s a hefty chunk of change for 18 episodes.
Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merrill declined to confirm that whopping $250 million number when speaking to Variety, but stood by the results.
“We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time,” Merrill said.
As Variety points out, that makes it the most expensive animated series of all time by a longshot. It also might explain, at least partially, why we’re only getting two seasons. When Netflix first announced the news in June that Arcane would end with Season 2, co-creator Christian Linke pointed to story reasons, saying, “since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, which means the story of Arcane wraps up with this second season.” Linke also teased that the team was plotting other stories set in Runeterra.
The report has a couple of other interesting tidbits as well, including the fact that Riot had apparently recruited Marvel mainstays Joe and Anthony Russo to develop a feature film set in the League of Legends universe. However, Riot’s inexperience in Hollywood dealmaking — a crux of the article — led to the developer losing $5 million only for the Russos to walk away due to disagreements over the script. That’s an expensive creative difference.
Arcane Season 2, like the first season, will release in three acts, dropping episodes on November 9, November 16, and November 23. We thought that massive budget showed in the first season, which we gave a 10/10. “Arcane is the first video game adaptation that’s truly a masterpiece, breaking new ground for what’s possible in TV animation,” we wrote at the time.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
