Marvel Studios is known for spending millions of dollars on projects, “The Marvels” project from last November, which flopped, reportedly featured a budget of $300 million. And in the late summer of 2023, Marvel underwent what we described as the Marvel TV Reckoning, which was the company overhauling the way they made TV (leading to the restart of “Daredevil: Born Again”). But their strategy hasn’t ended there either. Apparently, budgets are part of the plan, as evinced by the new series, “Agatha All Along,” which is the least expensive series Marvel Television has produced, according to one of the show’s executives (read our review).
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“I can tell you it’s our least expensive show, and I think that was by design,” Brad Winderbaum, head of streaming, television and animation for Marvel Studios, said in an interview with Variety this week. “We are looking to make these shows for a responsible cost. Frankly, it gives us a little bit more freedom creatively when we can bring them in at a reasonable budget. Like [“Agatha All Along”], for example, the show has minimal CG, way less than we’ve ever done before. It’s mostly practical effects, and I think you can feel it in the show.”
Winderbaum didn’t go into specific details, but previously, the least expensive Marvel show was reported to be the grounded “Hawkeye” spin-off “Echo,” which cost $40 million to produce.
When Marvel first started making shows on television, each show was said to have a budget on par with their movies, meaning around $150 million each.
Winderbaum also said this new fiscally responsible approach “certainly holds true with ‘Daredevil’ and our future slate as we look down the pike at ’26 and ’27. That’s certainly the goal.”
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While “Agatha: All Along” doesn’t have any movie stars from the Marvel universe in it—star Kathryn Hahn was first introduced in the series “WandaVision,” the Marvel exec said shows with bigger stars like Paul Bettany in the upcoming “Vision Quest” show would “not necessarily” have as high a budget as the original slate of Marvel series.
“I think it’s about how you use the effects, as opposed to the scale of the effects,” he said. “And we’re responding to to our own recent history here, and how effective effects really are in increasing the value of a story.”
Agatha: All Along:” has gotten off to a good start. Per Disney, the first episode of “Agatha” scored 9.3 million views in its first seven days of availability. “Agatha” was created by “WandaVision” filmmaker Jac Schaeffer as part of her overall deal with Marvel Studios and 20th Television. The fourth episode just aired this week out of a nine-episode series. Marvel’s next TV series, “Daredevil: Born Again,” will premiere in March 2025, in another strategy to only release two live-action series yearly.