Not many productions are known for being “the world’s most expensive TV series ever”… but how much has Prime Video spent per episode?

After the first two episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” have now officially been released, viewers have finally had a chance to take part in a series that most people at least seem to think looks very lavish. And anything else would be very strange, considering that the series is, after all, the most expensive television series ever created.

But how much has the first season actually cost Prime Video per episode? There are slightly different sums that have been thrown around over the years, ranging from a billion dollars to 465 million and then we have the fact that just the rights to the characters and the environments themselves cost a whopping 250 million dollars.

First season: Roughly $58 million per episode!

The Wall Street Journal states that production costs for the first season have cost $465 million, which does not include the rights of $250 million. Without that, you are up to approximately 715 million dollars so far. However, with plans already in place for a full five seasons, the series is expected to have cost the company $1 billion soon. And now we haven’t included any overheads at all for the huge promotion that Prime Video did for the premiere of the first season – where, for example, they let masses of fans watch the first two episodes for free in cinemas in some countries.

When “Game of Thrones” released its final season, it had a really lavish budget of a whopping $15 million per episode, “”House of the Dragon” is said to be slightly above this but at least “under $20 million per episode”. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, on the other hand, had a budget per episode, during the first season, of roughly 58 million dollars .

The upcoming “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” seasons, on the other hand, will manage to get away considerably cheaper, considering that the rough work could be done before the first season. And they have also moved the production from New Zealand to the UK as of the start of the filming of the second season. After all, much of everything from props, costumes and different environments will be able to be reused in the future.

But the budget in the coming seasons will probably end up well above the sums that the biggest competing streaming services Netflix (“The Witcher”) and HBO Max (“House of the Dragon”) will be able to afford.

The first two episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” are now available on Prime Video. The first season will consist of a total of eight episodes, with a new episode released every Friday.