$10m+ Budget

[Harldin]

Reports today that the budget for the series is $10m per episode, which compares very favourably to Season 1 of GOT at $6m per episode.

[Thrasymachus]

I'd bet more than half of that is going towards cast salaries.  There's already a huge supporting cast list that we know of, and almost as many more characters who we know will be cast, whose casting we don't yet know, Min being the most prominent example.

 

The biggest risk at this point, I reckon, is that the first season ends up being nitpicked to death in post-production, with all this covid downtime we're dealing with.

[Harldin]

2 hours ago, Thrasymachus said:

I'd bet more than half of that is going towards cast salaries.  There's already a huge supporting cast list that we know of, and almost as many more characters who we know will be cast, whose casting we don't yet know, Min being the most prominent example.

 

The biggest risk at this point, I reckon, is that the first season ends up being nitpicked to death in post-production, with all this covid downtime we're dealing with.

I’m not sure about the big salaries at this stage, Rosamund is the only one who can command a big Salary. The biggest problem with the casting yet to be announced is they are all 1 episode Cameos, Min will be no more than about 1 minute of screen time in season 2, those in Caemlyn about 5 minutes, only the Shienaran’s will get a decent amount of screen time if as is rumoured the final episode is in Fal Dara. This will create some difficulties getting the right actors when they are only getting a couple of days work and then a promise of more for later seasons. 

Raf has already said that the first 6 episodes are finished and only filming has been stopped, post production is still very much an ongoing thing. I think the only thing Covid 19 is going to affect is the release date, 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Harldin

[Thrasymachus]

They don't have to be that big if there's a lot of them.  And there's a lot of them.

[Carebear Sedai]

I don't think it's an issue now, but the cast salaries are gonna be a nightmare down the line. Unlike most shows no one dies in this series, leaving the character count to get bigger and bigger over its run.  

 

 

[mistborn82]

I think they'll make changes, like maybe Morgase really gets killed by Rahvin, drop Valan Luca and other stuff. True, none of the main cast dies but the supporting cast won't be anywhere near as big since alot of their arcs went nowhere in the books.

[Harldin]

7 hours ago, mistborn82 said:

I think they'll make changes, like maybe Morgase really gets killed by Rahvin, drop Valan Luca and other stuff. True, none of the main cast dies but the supporting cast won't be anywhere near as big since alot of their arcs went nowhere in the books.

Yes they definitely need to cut or combine Characters, there is 2800 named Characters in WOT after all, Morgase’s storyline is definitely one we don’t really need and it goes nowhere, maybe have her completely disappear from Caemlyn and then show up after Elayne takes the throne, i was shocked by the the way Morgase returned, i imagined Elayne being taken to a remote estate to find Morgase living there in secret, and Morgase saying that she will live there in retirement, while Elayne rules.

[Harldin]

Update to the $ per episode, the $10m per episode was based on the fact that the Czech Republic Government has a policy of a 20% pay back on all money spent in the Czech by foreign TV and Movie productions. The WOT producers have applied for just over $14m from the Czech Government, that means they will spend around $75m in country alone.

So all the wages of the Cast and a large proportion of the crew, a fair bit of post production work will not be included in that $75m, so we may be looking at $12-13m per episode, Rosamund Pikes salary is $350,000 per episode alone.

[mistborn82]

Some of that money will probably be saved for the main cast because if the show takes off, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Elayne and Nyneave will surely be able to command larger salaries.

[johnnysd]

It is actually closer to $120 million total for the 8 episodes.