The fallout from Arcane’s reported $250 million budget continues to rumble on, with the Netflix series’ executive music producer Alex Seaver having what probably should be the final say on the matter.
“The show is made by Riot Games, which is, I think, one of the reasons it took a long time to make. There’s all these articles about how expensive it was, it is because we are not a film and television studio, we’re a game company,” Seaver told Screen Rant.
Seaver continued, “But I think it’s also the reason that in some respects this broke a video game adaptation curse, or whatever people say, is because these people care the most about the game. They made it. We didn’t lease out the work to traditional people in film and television, which can totally work. But for something like this, the special sauce is that it’s made in the building and we do all the animation in Paris at Fortiche.”
The $250 million number that has been floated around first stemmed from a report by Variety. While it may be an eye-watering figure at first glance, both internal and external creatives have been roundly supportive of Arcane’s budget.
“Let this be the example for the standard if you want artistry and quality,” production designer and artist Jason Scheier, who worked on Blue Eye Samurai, said on Twitter shortly after the news broke.
“First of all, the number is not exactly right,” showrunner Christian Linke told GamesRadar+ earlier this month. “That number does include marketing costs associated with the release, which is not part of the budget of Arcane.”
Linke added, “Arcane is a really expensive animated series – which was the point. Our dream was to create an animated series that has the fidelity of what you see in animated movies.”
Finally, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill wrote on Reddit, “Since I’m here I’ll add – the ‘lol @ the cost’ of Arcane arguments are silly from our perspective. As people have correctly pointed out, the cost per minute of Arcane is about 1/3 to 1/4 of what Illumination / Pixar films cost.” Merrill also stated that “all of Arcane’s budget goes to talent”, hence the high overhead costs across two seasons and multiple years of production.
So, is that the end of the matter? Maybe, maybe not. What can’t be argued is that you can feel every cent of Arcane’s bank-busting budget on the screen in its lavish animation and high production values.
For more on the show, check out our breakdown of the Arcane season 2 ending and why there won’t be an Arcane season 3.