Streaming giant Netflix made massive headlines this week when the company revealed in a quarterly earnings report that they lost 200,000 subscribers and their stock subsequently plummeted (apparently the company lost 700,000 subscribers when they cut off service to Russia, but obviously made up some of that number in new subscribers).
Additionally, after indicating last month they weren’t going to change their model, in the wake of this stock crash, the streaming service announced they’ll be introducing a lower-cost subscriber option that will be ad-supported. And well, they’re getting more bad press and it sounds like reports of what might be considered ridiculous spending on their projects may hurt them further.
A new report from The Wall Street Journal claims the special-effects-filled show “Stranger Things,” now in its fourth season, has a cost of $30 million per episode. This is according to those working on the popular genre-bending series.
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For some context, that price tag is double what HBO was spending on “Game of Thrones” in the final season at $15 million a pop. Disney/Lucasfilm was paying $12.5 million per episode for the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian” as stated by Bob Iger in 2019, and the first round of live-action Marvel Studios shows was reportedly costing them $25 million to produce per episode.
You can understand why that number would be jarring to hear for those that have tracked the budgets of high-profile television projects. However, without seeing the new “Stranger Things” season in full ourselves it’s hard to gauge if that money was well spent on the production side or if the show’s talent costs have simply ballooned to an unreasonable level. Still, that’s a lot of moolah to be shelling out when you consider the first season reportedly cost $6 million an episode.
While spending a relatively more conservative amount on new things like the hit Korean genre series “Squid Game” at $2.4 million, Netflix still seems to be spending an excessive amount of their billions on things that may never get watched, or at least, seemed to be dumped on the service unceremoniously at times. Netflix is quickly building a reputation of quantity, not quality, at least in some circles. And while that could be considered an unfair assessment considering their many Emmy wins over the years, it’s hard to argue that the streamer isn’t overloading the user with what appears to be too much content, and some content, that many would argue, isn’t essential (this could be an argument made about their subscriber loss too).
Then again, it’s no secret that Netflix is burning a lot of production dollars on trying to manufacture franchises, spending well over $200 million for “Red Notice” and The Russo Brothers‘ upcoming spy thriller “The Gray Man.” The latter is being marketed as the most expensive Netflix original to date.
Still, this strategy, go big or go home, is essentially the same model of most film studios that are often trying to make $1 billion-plus on all their big franchises. Netflix clearly believes things like “Red Notice” can draw in millions of viewers around the globe and if their data is to believed, millions and millions of people have watched it and are perhaps deeply anticipating more. With Netflix a little wounded at the moment, at least optically and in the press, don’t be surprised if more reports of this nature begin to surface in the upcoming weeks.