Arcane is already breaking a record, even before the release of season 2

In 2021, a series completely shook up the small world of animation: Arcanea production derived from the famous game League of Legends. Animated by the French studio Fortiche, season 1 has become a benchmark of the genre, in addition to ranking among the best series available on Netflix. Three years after the amazed discovery of the story of Vi and Jinx, two sisters separated by life, Arcane finally makes its comeback for a highly anticipated second and final season. While the first episodes will be available on Netflix from November 9, 2024, this little animated gem has already broken a size record.

Arcane is the most expensive animated series ever produced

And Arcane is so popular, it is thanks to its perfection in all areas: the animation is careful, the music perfectly complements the plot, the characters are built with an impressive sense of detail, the whole respects the original game and its fans…

In short, the animated series ticks all the boxes of a masterpiece. But this excellence from the Fortiche studio obviously comes at a cost. And on this point, Arcane absolutely explodes everything in its path.

According to a very comprehensive report from the American media Variety around Riot Games, which is developing the game League of Legends and produced the Netflix series, Arcane would therefore have cost more than 250 million dollars for the promotion and production of the two seasons. With its 18 episodes, it therefore becomes the most expensive animated series in history.

The flip side is that Riot Games has invested so much in Arcanethat it is now struggling to develop its other activities in the field of entertainment. But the immense sums spent on Netflix production, their only project in the world of cinema and television, come precisely from the games publisher’s lack of experience in this area, according to Variety.

A series in five seasons, revised downwards

For example, Riot Games spent around $60 million marketing Season 1 ofArcane, which Variety considers to be well above average for a series distributed by a third party. The game publisher even spent more than Netflix to promote the series, including a huge video broadcast on the tallest skyscraper in the world, Burj Khalifa, located in Dubai.

Originally, Vi and Jinx’s story was also supposed to be told for five seasons. A figure finally revised downwards, after having already spent 80 million dollars for the first 9 episodes, then 100 million for season 2. Amounts which can be explained by an abundant need for manpower and budget overruns , due to delays in script delivery, while the second season entered production without being written in full.

“Create a series that is worthy of our players and their time”

In the long article published by Variety, we also learn that Riot Games had to offer 5 million to the Russo brothers (Avengers), to whom they had entrusted the mission of working on a film in the universe of League of Legendsin 2020, before finally abandoning the project, and still having to pay the two directors for their time.

Note that Riot Games refused to confirm with Variety the investment of $250 million in the success ofArcane. The co-founder of the American company, Marc Merril, however affirmed that Riot Games “feels completely comfortable with the cost we had to pay to create a series that was worthy of our players and their time”.

Variety, for its part, believes thatArcane will not be profitable for Riot Games, despite the $3 million spent by Netflix for the rights to broadcast each episode worldwide. Even with the goodies and paid skins available on League of Legendsin connection with the series, Riot Games should, at best, cover its costs, without making any real profits. At the same time, the games publisher laid off 530 employees in January 2024, as well as 27 new people in October.