Following the return of Game of Thrones to the small screens across the world, the figures budgeted to produce each episode have been disclosed. The budget hit an all-time high when compared to the previous costs of producing Season one to seven.
Produced by Dan Weiss and David Benioff, Game of Thrones’ highest production budget was estimated at $10 million according to an April 2016 report by Entertainment Weekly. However, that figure was significantly increased for the production of Season eight.
Cost of Game of Thrones episodes: As you should already know, the episode one of Season eight premiered on Sunday, April 14, 2019, and millions of fans across the world are excited.
According to Variety, each episode of the season finale is expected to gulp about $15 million. The previous two seasons’ episodes had hit $10 million as production cost, rising by $4 million after the other seasons’ episodes gulped $6 million each.
Although these figures weren’t exactly confirmed by HBO which televises Game of Thrones, David Benioff earlier spoke of how the Season two penultimate installment, “Blackwater,” cost more than expected.
The episode cost $8 million due to its extensive battle scene and larger-than-life props, including a full-sized replica of a 14th-century battleship.
“We had one really intense conference call with the HBO brass,” Benioff told GQ. “It was awkward.
“I think we asked for $2.5 million. We got $2 million-something…That’s a lot of money in TV.
“We’d known for about a year that the ninth episode was going to be ‘Blackwater,’ and a disproportionate amount of our resources were saved for this episode in terms of time and schedule.”
It was disclosed that increasing the budget was crucial to getting the episode right. Even HBO understood this.
Game of Thrones breaks ratings’ record
Note that Game of Thrones broke its ratings’ record after the Season eight episode one premiered on Sunday, with 17.4 million people on its watchlist. This is according to HBO, who also noted that the number increased significantly.
This figure is more than the audience that watched the premiere of Season seven which was estimated at 10.1 million. It also increasing above the number of viewers of Season seven finale in 2017.
