‘The Walking Dead’ may not have been entirely cheap with an episode production budget averaging $3 million, but it rarely caused a stir with particularly spectacular visuals. Crowd scenes, city panoramas and computer effects in particular repeatedly showed the limits of the available resources.
By comparison, the fantasy adventure ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ was the absolute series leader in terms of costs, costing around $58 million per episode. This is followed by the massive Amazon production “Citadel” with $50 million and the fourth season of the Netflix mega-hit “Stranger Things” with about $30 million per episode.
But with the latest spin-off of ‘Walking Dead’, people have caught up with these blockbusters a little more: for ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’, the usual episode budget of the main series was quadrupled and increased to an impressive twelve million. dollars – which was noticeable, among other things, in picturesque photos of the French landscape. And with the next spin-off ‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’ they are apparently going one step further: according to data from Authority The six-part miniseries would have cost a total of $82 million, which equates to an episode average of around $13.7 million.
This is not only a new record in the ‘Walking Dead’ franchise, but almost on par with lavish HBO productions like ‘The last of us” and the last “Game of Thrones“-Squadron (each with an episode budget of $15 million) and the Netflix hit ‘One Piece’ (between $16 and 17 million with an episode budget). But does that really mean that everything takes a step up in “The Ones Who Live”?
Really more money for the series or just higher (star) costs?
It is not surprising that the responsible broadcaster AMC is spending a little more money on the new ‘Walking Dead’ series. After all, this is the long-awaited comeback of former ‘TWD’ figurehead Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his love Michonne (Danai Gurira), which was originally planned as a cinema trilogy, but was ultimately turned into one miniseries.
And with bigger sets, hordes of zombies and explosive action, the trailer for The Ones Who Live promises plenty of spectacle that could put previous titles in the franchise to shame. However, you should not have too high expectations of the dimensions. On the one hand, production costs have generally increased in recent years due to inflation. On the other hand, a not insignificant part of the amount probably went to the salaries of Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurirawho certainly paid a lot for their return.
In just over a month we’ll find out what exactly the miniseries does: “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live” begins February 26, 2024 in Germany on Telekom streaming service Magenta TV – and just one day after the American premiere. Unlike previous spin-offs The Walking Dead: Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which have both already been greenlit for a second season, The Ones Who Live will end after one season.