Take the ‘Game Of Thrones’ season with the most expensive episodes, namely the last eighth, and add many more. Then you have the budget that showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss had at their disposal for their new science fiction series ‘3 Body Problem’, with which they adapted the bestseller of the same name by Liu Cixin.
As in a detailed portrait of the two creators of the series Was revealed, Netflix made each episode of “3 Body Problem” cost a whopping $20 million. With eight episodes in its first season, the series carries a price tag of $160 million, a budget that even a movie blockbuster would be proud of.
“3 Body Problem”: Just as expensive as “House Of The Dragon”
For comparison: HBO spent around six million per episode on the fantasy saga ‘Game Of Thrones’ in the first season, and that amount increased year after year. In the eighth and final season of the hit series, one episode cost approximately $15 million. At Netflix, Benioff and Weiss now had even more money at their disposal to realize their ambitious vision, as much as is now spent per episode of the ‘GoT’ prequel ‘House Of The Dragon’. Both have already had enough of their mega-successful predecessor format:
“There’s definitely pressure, but when ‘Thrones’ came out, I remember being sleepless and anxious,” Benioff said. “It’s nerve-wracking when it’s your first big thing, and it’s nerve-wracking when you’ve been doing it for a while.”
Now they have to prove they still have it. And finally, expectations are different now than at the beginning of ‘Game Of Thrones’: ‘The first season of ‘Thrones’ was relatively low-budget and not that big compared to what was to come.’
Benioff & Weiss plan four seasons
If ‘3 Body Problem’ is a success on Netflix, the series could have a total of four seasons under the current plan. With their ‘Game Of Thrones’ follow-up, Benioff and Weiss have tackled ambitious material: On several narrative levels, it concerns the story of an alien invasion caused by a single woman’s decision during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and which confronts a group of young scientists (including Eiza Gonzalez, John Bradley, Jess Hong) in the form of a virtually impossible task – even if the invasion is still centuries in the future.
“3 Body Problem” will premiere on Netflix on March 21, 2024. Do you want to be the first to watch the first two episodes? Then you can win tickets for the exclusive preview on March 19 in Berlin.