Netflix's All-Time Most Expensive Shows

It's no secret that Netflix is a big spender. In 2017 alone, the entertainment company and video-on-demand service spent more on non-sports content than any of its competition in the streaming video space. In fact, it spent more than most traditional TV media companies, dropping $6.3 billion on original and acquired programming. For comparison, Time Warner, Fox, and Disney all spent roughly $8 billion — a number Netflix plans to match in 2018. Netflix's expenditure is also significantly higher than other entertainment giants', dwarfing the video content budgets of Viacom, Amazon, CBS, Apple, and Facebook.

The lion's share of Netflix's budget, of course, goes to original programming — as the streaming service aspires to soon maintain a library of 50 percent in-house content. In order to achieve this goal, the company has signed off on some seriously high-budget series. But which are the most expensive shows Netflix has ever produced? Let's find out.

As one of Netflix's most well-known and widely acclaimed series, it's not surprising that Orange Is the New Black ranks among the streaming service's most expensive offerings. Nevertheless, it's still on the lower end of the high-budget spectrum, since most of the filming takes place in a prison.

Still, the Jenji Kohan-created dark comedy about life in a minimum security women's prison actually costs more than you might think. According to CAA TV literary agent Peter Micelli, Orange Is the New Black runs just under $4 million per episode. "They're huge budgets shows," he noted. "They're doing things in a huge way."

"A huge way" indeed. Investing in the screen rights to Piper Kerman's memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, paid massive dividends for Netflix. The series has won more awards than you can scratch on a prison wall, and helped solidify Netflix's popularity domestically and internationally.

At the time of its creation, Beau Willimon's presidential thriller House of Cards set a new standard for Netflix — in terms of quality as well as production costs.

As noted by Business Insider, lead actor and executive producer Kevin Spacey once mentioned at an IBM-hosted conference in Las Vegas that the show's producers were "widely reported" to have spent $100 million on the first season alone — though he could neither "confirm nor deny" those details.

Spacey also mentioned that many industry insiders laughed at Netflix's expenditure, claiming the show would "never make that money back." According to the team at Netflix, however, they'd only need to bring in 565,000 new subscribers to break even, and the company reportedly upped their subscriber count by at least 27.5 million the year House of Cards debuted — with the ultra-popular political drama undoubtedly playing a major role in the streaming service winning the television audience's popular vote.

Science fiction drama series Sense8 didn't make quite the splash Netflix hoped for, though Lana and Lilly Wachowski's production certainly cost the streaming behemoth a pretty penny.

According to Variety, Sense8 came in at a resounding $9 million per episode, making it — at the time — one of the most expensive television shows in production. For comparison, HBO's cultural phenomenon Game of Thrones was, at the time, costing the rival network roughly $6 million an episode to make, while maintaining its claim to the most-watched crown with 8.9 million viewers tuning in to the sixth season's finale. Sense8, on the other hand, never even came close to challenging for the throne.

Sense8 was canceled after two seasons, as the return on investment simply wasn't there — a fact not even the seemingly unconcerned-about-finances streaming service could deny. "Relative to what you spent, are people watching it?," Sarandos mused in a conversation with Jerry Seinfeld. "A big expensive show for a huge audience is great. A big, expensive show for a tiny audience is hard even in our model to make that work very long."

Baz Luhrmann's and Stephen Adly Guirgis' South Bronx musical drama The Get Down caused a lot of tension between Sony Pictures Television and Netflix. According to Variety, the show's two-and-a-half year production saw two showrunners and a whole slew of writers come and go — allegedly due to Luhrmann's involvement. A money-burning budget coupled with a lack of actual filming saw Sony get fed up quickly, but Netflix reportedly had Luhrmann's back all the way. In fact, the streaming giant's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, refused to formally greenlight development until Luhrmann agreed to direct the series from start to finish.

When The Get Down's 12-episode season was finally wrapped up, the total cost of production ended up well well over the original budget of roughly $7.5 million per episode — reportedly costing at least $120 million overall. Even with New York's tax incentives factored in, the nine-figure budget made Netflix's hip-hop show one of the most expensive in television history.

Unsurprisingly, Netflix — famous for its seemingly limitless war chest — didn't care. "We're not in the widget business," Cindy Holland, Netflix's VP of original content, told Variety. "We're about supporting our artists and supporting their vision. Working with Baz and his team was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Every aspect of the process was unconventional. It was really inspiring."

Debuting in February 2018, the dystopian cyberpunk series Altered Carbon is believed to be Netflix's most expensive show to date — if not the most expensive first season in television history.

Based on the 2002 novel of the same title by English author Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon remained in development hell for nearly a decade and a half. Originally optioned by Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver immediately after the book's publication, the show finally began its expensive march to Netflix's lineup after Shutter Island and Terminator Genisys screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis came on board. To add some extra assurance that the show would indeed be epic, Emmy-winning Games of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik was also added to the team.

As is often the case, the exact cost of Altered Carbon's production remains only an estimation at a conservative $7 million per episode. However, Kalogridis finds that figure comical. "That number is really funny," Kalogridis told The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh. "I feel comfortable saying that that number is not correct. I would say it's inaccurate."

Regardless of how inaccurate the series' first season $70 million price tag may be, it's a surefire bet that Altered Carbon represents one of Netflix's most expensive — if not the most expensive — show to date.