Disney+ show Secret Invasion is out now. The Samuel L. Jackson starrer show follows an army of shape-shifting aliens— Skrulls, alongside rival agent Olivia Colman, who has distinct methods to get things done.
The show is star-studded. Other than Jackson and Colman, the show brings back Ben Mendelsohn and Cobie Smulders. Also, new stars were taken onboard, including Emilia Clarke, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and more. And reportedly, the cost of making the series exceeded the expected mark.
Cost of Making Secret Invasion
Secret Invasion has been expensive. As per a report by Forbes, the MCU show is expected to cross the $211.6 million mark. However, the viewers of the six-part show turned out to be the second lowest of the Marvel comic-adapted series with only 994,000 viewers, barely surpassing Ms. Marvel, which had 775,000 viewers. Loki had 2.5 million viewers and Moon Knight crossed 1.8 million with a much lesser production budget than the Samuel L. Jackson show.
Secret Invasion was shot in the United Kingdom at Pinewood Studios and a few other locations. While budgets of shows are usually kept in the dark, UK-made shows are an exception as they receive the government’s Television Tax Relief scheme. The studios can claim up to 25% of reimbursement of the money they spend in the country but the show has to qualify certain criteria.
Reports say the skyrocketed budget of the show could be due to the reshoot as they have spent extra four months on the reshoot and hired a new writer for the additional material added to the show.
It cost $35.3 million per hour in the making of the show. So of course, Secret Invasion was more than qualified to claim reimbursement. The show received a $41.3 million reimbursement from the UK government. A big relief, indeed.
Other Big Budget MCU’s Disney+ Shows
Following its launch in 2019, Disney+ streaming has not been profitable as it crossed $659 million in loss in the early months of 2023 alone. MCU shows are generally expensive to make as some of them even outpaced the studios’ big movies.
While Secret Invasion remained on top, two other MCU shows also followed the trail of high production costs. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s WandaVision cost the studio $25 million per episode, which made the nine-episode season spend over $225 million in production budget.
Tatiana Maslany starrer She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has incredible casts and cameos. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner and Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock cameos were among the highlighting factors of the show. While Tim Roth’s Abomination has rather a funny side in the light-hearted show, She-Hulk did follow the trademark MCU actions, unlike Secret Invasion. But the production cost of Maslany’s 9-episode series also entailed a budget of $25 million per episode, totaling an astounding $225 million expense. Understandably, the series was reliant on heavy VFX and CGI, but despite the cost, many criticized the same in the show.
Disney and MCU are surely on the path of making extensive plans for the recovery of the losses. The high-value production costs of the shows have been worrisome. Earlier Disney’s CEO Bob Iger announced the content-cutting plan for cost saving. Marvel president Kevin Feige also said that the pace of MCU’s Disney+ shows will change indicating fewer shows coming out each year.
Source: Twitter
