Arcane’s staggering $250M budget makes it most expensive animated series ever

Netflix’s Arcane is officially the most expensive animated series ever, with the show’s 18 episodes costing $250 million to produce.

Based within the world of Riot’s League of Legends, Arcane has been a massive hit for both Netflix and the IP.

The first season won multiple Primetime Emmys and has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Now Season 2 draws near and excitement is palpable.

However, this success has not come without a price, with Arcane’s two seasons officially the most expensive animated series of all time.

As reported by Variety, Arcane’s 18-episode run cost $250 million to produce. Given this price tag, it’s no surprise that initial plans for a five-season stint were cut short. 

When asked to comment on this jaw-dropping cost, Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merril revealed to Variety that the team “never intended to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines”. 

He discussed how creating Arcane has been a learning experience for Riot moving forward.

“We learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realized that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals and teams with that in mind.”

When asked directly about the $250 million cost, the Riot co-founder simply stated that the team is “more than comfortable more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time.”

This really does appear to be the case, given that the show’s success is set to spawn an MCU-style extended cinematic universe for LoL, with multiple new spin-off shows already confirmed to be in the works. 

Arcane’s second and final season is set to release throughout November, 2024. 

The first three episodes will drop on November 9, the next three on November 16, and then the show’s final episode will be released on November 23.