Alien and Gladiator director Ridley Scott has a new show in the works, and it’s coming to Apple TV Plus. It doesn’t seem cheap, either – a person working on the show revealed to Jordan Ruimy of World Of Reel (opens in new tab) that the pilot alone cost over $50 million. To put that in perspective, Gladiator had a budget of $103 million according to IMDB, and that was a full-length feature film and a very long one at that.
It looks like Scott’s making another project that’s grand in scale, with monstrous budgets. This isn’t the first show that’s cost an incredible amount of money – Jeff Bezos’ pet project Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power cost $58 million per episode. It was an epic fantasy, however, rather than a crime drama.
Most expensive crime show?
Scott’s new expensive endeavor is called Sinking Spring, and it adapts the book Dope Thief by Dennis Tafoya. It’s a crime drama starring Michael Mando of Better Call Saul fame and Brian Tyree Henry as two friends posing as DEA agents. IMDB explains as such:
“Follows long-time friends and delinquents who pose as DEA agents to rob a house in the countryside, but end up unintentionally revealing and unraveling the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard.”
Scott works on the show between the new Gladiator and his upcoming movie Napoleon.
Apple TV continues to be one of the most interesting of streaming platforms, consistently releasing new and different pieces of work. From the critically acclaimed (and hilariously heartwarming) Ted Lasso to the bizarre and unnerving Severance, Apple seems intent on releasing more new ideas rather than sequels or prequels. Last year solidified Apple’s intent with a slew of awards and nominations, and now it seems it wants to release more big-budget shows – and TV shows don’t get much bigger budget than $50 million per episode.
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