What is the budget of ‘Stranger Things’ season five?
Netflix isn’t shy of placing big bets when it comes to one of its biggest shows yet, Stranger Things.
So, it only makes sense that the platform went all out to curate its fifth and final season, and it literally left no stone unturned, at least monetarily.
According to a new report by Puck News via Forbes, Stranger Things was already one of the biggest-budget shows for Netflix, but the final season? It’s on a level above.
An approximate cost of $50-$60million per episode has been estimated, totalling the production cost to roughly $400-480million, considering there are eight episodes in the season, to be released in three parts. The first volume is scheduled to drop on November 26th, followed by a second volume on Christmas. The epic finale has been slated for a New Year’s Eve premiere.
When compared to other major Netflix hits, the Wall Street Journal previously reported that the budget was $3million per episode in the case of Virgin River. This means the cost of making Stranger Things is 20 times higher, practically putting the hit Netflix sci-fi series into a league of its own.
In fact, Bridgerton cost “more than three times as much” as Virgin River, which still feels like a drop in the bucket when looking at the $60million per episode budget. However, Stranger Things didn’t always have this big an allowance from the start.
When the debut season was released, the total budget was $46million, a far cry from its latest expense. To put things into perspective, Netflix also spends a lot more on cast salaries now. The tabloids estimate an approximate $350,000 per episode for the cast leads, while other members of the main cast supposedly take home a hefty $250,000 paycheck.
An additional fun fact is that should the final budget for Stranger Things surpass the higher end of estimates, which is $480million, it would cross the known budget production of almost all the films ever made, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which cost around $447million to make and is often cited as one of the most expensive movies of all time.
If such a thing happens, then Stranger Things could also surpass the production cost of Amazon’s first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which set a record of its own in the TV landscape with its $465million budget. But only time will tell if the show leaves a benchmark of its own in this particular field.