The average cost of a TV episode is $4 million, and that’s for an episode of an established show that audiences are guaranteed to tune in to see. A pilot episode is a much bigger gamble, and usually a much more expensive one. Since entirely new sets have to be built and the whole cast has to be hired and the aesthetic of the series needs to be established, pilot episodes can often cost a lot more than $4 million to produce.
Many big-budget pilot episodes have been made over the years. Some have blossomed into cultural landmarks, like Game of Thrones, while others haven’t even made it to a second season, like Vinyl.
10 Rome ($9 Million)
Due to the difficulty of recreating a long-forgotten historical period, the HBO/BBC drama series Rome came with a hefty price-tag of $9 million per episode, including its pilot episode.
The show was initially very popular, but it ended up getting canceled after its ratings took a nosedive in the second season and the $9 million-per-episode price-tag could no longer be justified.
9 Fringe ($10 Million)
When Fringe was about to premiere and the president of Fox called it “an expensive show,” he wasn’t kidding. The feature-length pilot episode of the sci-fi drama cost a whopping $10 million to produce.
After the pilot was out of the way, the show scaled back its production and was able to get away with a $4 million budget for each episode. It ended up running for 100 episodes across five seasons.
8 Game Of Thrones ($10 Million)
Long before they would irritate fans across the world with a half-baked final season, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss produced a pilot episode for HBO for a show called Game of Thrones that would adapt George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series for the small screen.
While HBO had some doubts about an adult-oriented fantasy series, they went all in with the pilot episode, forking over $10 million to give it movie-quality production value.
7 The Crown ($13 Million)
In order to replicate the British royal family’s lavish lifestyle and the historical environments of those lavish antics, Netflix pumped $13 million into the pilot episode of The Crown.
The entire first season estimated to have cost $130 million, although series creator Peter Morgan claims this is closer to the figure for both the first and second seasons as opposed to just the first one. Either way, The Crown has proven to be an immense success for Netflix, so it all worked out.
6 Lost ($14 Million)
The pilot episode of Lost is one of the greatest ever made, efficiently setting up its premise and characters while also introducing a bunch of mysteries on the island that would be fleshed out (to varying degrees of satisfaction) throughout the rest of the series.
But producing such an iconic pilot episode isn’t cheap. The pilot of Lost cost $14 million to produce, which made it the most expensive pilot episode ever made at the time.
5 The Get Down ($16 Million)
Netflix’s musical drama The Get Down wasn’t cheap. Every episode, including the first one, is reported to have cost the streaming giant a heart attack-inducing $16 million to produce.
The show developed a small following, but its fan base wasn’t big enough to justify spending that kind of money, so it’s no wonder Netflix canceled the show.
4 Boardwalk Empire ($18 Million)
The feature-length pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire, directed by the series’ executive producer Martin Scorsese, cost HBO an estimated $18 million. It paid off in the end, though, as Boardwalk Empire went on to become one of HBO’s most popular shows of the decade.
It was never as big as The Sopranos or Game of Thrones, but the story of politician-turned-gangster Nucky Thompson maintained solid ratings for five seasons.
3 Terra Nova ($20 Million)
Remember Terra Nova, the show about future humans going back in time to live among the dinosaurs? Of course you don’t. The show ran for 13 critically panned episodes before being promptly canceled.
But under the guidance of executive producer Steven Spielberg, the ultimately short-lived and quickly forgotten sci-fi series managed to secure a behemoth $20 million budget for its pilot episode.
2 Westworld ($25 Million)
HBO’s re-adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Westworld threw the idea of a robot cowboy chasing a guest around the park out the window. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy blew the premise wide open with meditations on artificial intelligence and the hubris of humanity.
The visual effects that bring Westworld’s philosophical musings to life aren’t cheap. The pilot episode reportedly cost $25 million to produce.
1 Vinyl ($30 Million)
Another HBO drama spearheaded by executive producer Martin Scorsese (this time in collaboration with Mick Jagger), Vinyl was even more expensive than Boardwalk Empire. The Scorsese-helmed two-hour pilot episode alone cost $30 million, while the first season as a whole cost $100 million.
Unlike Scorsese’s Prohibition-era gangster saga, which became one of HBO’s flagship shows, his ‘70s-set music industry drama didn’t have the ratings to justify a second-season renewal.
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