Arcane, aka one of the hottest topics of the town, if not the hottest. Brought to life in animation from the minds of Christian Linke and Alex Yee, the series is set in Riot Games’ League of Legends universe and is distributed by Netflix. In a series of events that take place in the themes of adult animated steampunk action-adventure genres, the show primarily focuses on sisters Vi and Jinx.
With its first season released back in 2021 and its second and final season having recently ended its run, the science fiction drama shows the origins of two iconic League champions, Vi and Jinx, set in the utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun. As exceptional as that sounds, the series was even more breathtaking, garnering a lot more acclaim than even expected.
Unlike how video-game adaptations and video-game based series usually go, especially among the fans of the saga, Arcane proved to be a massive hit. With praise directed at its animation, visuals, story, worldbuilding, action sequences, characters, emotional weight, sound, and voice acting, the show ended up appeasing both casual viewers and long-time fans of the game.
In addition to its sweet 100% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes and 9/10 stars on IMDb, the animated series has been considered one of the best video game adaptations ever made by many critics. Plus, it became the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 2022 and won an Annie Award for Best General Audience Animated Television Broadcast Production as well, so that’s that too.
But as astounding as its success was, not many know that the immaculate series’ roots lie way back down the stunning memory lane, with its original budget being a mere $2,000 before it scored a record-breaking investment from Riot Games. That said, here’s the story of its success, from $2,000 to a whopping $250 million budget that makes Arcane the most expensive animated series ever produced in television history.
Arcane Originally Started With a $2000 Budget
While Arcane has gone on to become the costliest and one of the best-animated series of all time, it doesn’t exempt it from the fact that it had rather humble beginnings. This revelation came out in Arcane Bridging the Rift’s pilot episode I Only Dream in Risky, when series writer Christian “Praeco” Linke confessed they were only given US$2,000 at the start of the project.
Per the documentary series, the blockbuster idea of this project started after the release of League of Legends’ Get Jinxed! music video – where Riot Games worked with French animation studio Fortiche Productions – when the series’ creator cum writer Alex Yee expressed his wish to expand the LoL universe outside the game and into long-form narrative content.
Talking about the creation of the project in the first place, Yee said, “I just always had this sense of obligation to the players. It just felt like we created these characters and players answered us by spending so much time with them and loving them. It just felt like they deserved to have better stories.” Since the intention was good, the journey and results turned out to be stunning as well.
Soon after proposing the idea, they had to convince Riot Games co-founders, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, following which they were finally allowed a bigger budget for doing test animations and further developing the story. And while Marrill didn’t confirm the exact figures for the total budget allotted to the series, it was still reported to be around a whopping US$250 million.
Arcane Eventually Secured an Approximate $250M Investment from Riot Games
As per reports from Variety, the total budget allotted to the series for the production and promotion of its total 18 episodes, spread across both seasons 1 and 2, was approximately US$250 million. This million-dollar investment, unarguably, makes Arcane quite literally the most expensive animated series ever produced in the history of television.
Responding to Variety regarding questions about such a massive investment, Riot co-founder and CPO Marc Merrill reaffirmed the brand’s commitment to producing high-quality film and television. Declining to confirm the exact figure, he defended the budget, saying, “We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time.”
He further added:
Our ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed. 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.
Further details from Variety reveal that sources aware of the details of the production pinned the cost of the first nine 40-minute episodes at around $80 million, while the second batch in season 2 had a price tag approaching $100 million. This extensive cost was notably a result of both a labor-intensive approach and frequent cost overruns triggered by delayed script deliveries.
The show’s first episode, Welcome to the Playground itself took around 10 months to make due to the series’ unique animation style. Adding to this, Riot is also reported to have spent $60 million of its own money to promote the first season of Arcane – which is, for the record, a lot, especially while considering how it isn’t even the studio distributing the show in the first place.
Arcane is Quite Literally the Most Expensive Animated Series Ever Produced
As mentioned before, after earning such a tremendous investment that has been approximated at around $250 million – which is a lot, especially considering how it all started from a mere $2,000 budget – Arcane has earned the title of being the most expensive animated series ever produced. This really sets the bar a bit too high when it comes to budgeting constraints.
Comparing this with other animated series that earned themselves a gigantic total cost, there’s Tiny Toon Adventures from 1990-1992, which took a total budget of around $25 million for its first 65 episodes alone (via The Sydney Morning Herald). Then there’s BraveStarr (1987-1988) and ThunderCats (1985-1989), each of which cost $20 million (via The LA Times) and $15 million (for season 1 only, via The Philadelphia Inquirer) respectively.
When it comes to animated films, however, then Tangled (2010) just seems to have crossed the $250 million mark as Disney Studios reportedly had a $260 million budget for the masterpiece (via LA Times). Then there’s The Lion King from 2019, which reportedly had the same $250 million as Arcane (via THR).
Besides these, other animated flicks, like the ones from Pixar, including Toy Story 3 (2010), Cars 2 (2011), Monsters University (2013), Finding Dory (2016), Incredibles 2 (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019), Lightyear (2022), Elemental (2023), and Inside Out 2 (2024) were all reportedly made on a budget of around $200 million each.
With all of this being said, it’s unarguable that Arcane‘s reported $250 million budget for a mere 18 episodes is indeed a figure too baffling. But then again, the series’ star-studded reviews coupled with its nine clean sweeps at 2022’s Annie Awards and Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program further stand as a testament to the worthiness of this stunning investment.
Arcane season 1 and 2 can currently be streamed on Netflix.
