Riot Games blew $250 million on 18 episodes of Arcane, largely due to inexperience. The first season was a massive success, bagging four Emmy Awards in 2022, including Outstanding Animated Program. It was also the top TV show in 85 countries but does that justify the massive spending?
Arcane is set to return to Netflix on November 9. In the first 30 days after its release, Arcane was the second most in-demand new series in the United States, beating Marvel’s Hawkeye, WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki.
Although the initial plan was to have a five-season arc, the upcoming season had already been announced as the show’s last. Riot Games is best known for creating League of Legends—from where Arcane was adapted.
ALSO READ: Warner Bros. Blames MultiVersus For Its “Substantially Underperforming” Gaming Division
A few years ago, the company set out to expand into scripted entertainment. Consequently, they hired executives from top media companies to help them build a full-fledged entertainment division comprising live-action and animated TV and films that will leverage the company’s intellectual property.
While Riot Games’ former CEO Nicolo Laurent has set an ambitious goal for the company to become the “entertainment company of the 21st century”, Riot currently has nothing in work beyond Arcane.
Nevertheless, Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merrill is unwavering in the company’s commitment to making high-quality film and TV shows but acknowledged a learning curve—which has been way too costly for the company.
“Our ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed,” Merrill said in response to a question from Variety.
“We were never intending to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines. What did change as 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.”
Merrill declined to comment on the $250 spending on Arcane, instead saying, “We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time.”
Do you think the $250 million spent on the production of Arcane was worth it? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
