Andor
Andor has some of the best production value of any Star Wars project we’ve seen, from its real-life sets to its splicing with VFX, and there’s a reason for that. It cost a stunning amount of money.
Back in December, Forbes’ Caroline Reid reported that Andor cost $645 million, based on Disney filings she’d found that indicated that price. It was debated around the industry, but while it certainly seemed provable, now, for the first time, the showrunner of Andor himself is talking about that figure. And it is in fact that figure after all.
Tony Gilroy was speaking on a panel during the ATX Television Festival and had this to say about how this all came together, including Disney just throwing money at the project:
“I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million,” Gilroy said. “For 24 episodes, I never took a note. We said ‘F*** the Empire’ in the first season, and they said, ‘Can you please not do that?’ … In Season 2, they said, ‘Streaming is dead, we don’t have the money we had before,’ so we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.”
Gilroy has spoken about just how much support Disney gave to the series, which was concocted as long as a decade ago before just finishing its run. That not only includes the money (and that is an astonishing budget), but also the ability to do things like have a brother and murders in the first ten minutes, or the ability to say things like “genocide” and “rape” in a Star Wars series. As much as the fanbase likes to point fingers at her for what’s wrong with Disney, Gilroy has said that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy was the show’s biggest champion and the reason a lot of this got done.
Andor
Interestingly, if you do break down that budget, and Andor’s episode total, this is like shooting six or so, two-hour movies. Split that up, and it’s $110 million a movie. Spare change for a Star Wars film!
Of course, there’s the other side of this. This was not a billion dollar-earning blockbuster. This was a Disney Plus streaming series, and before The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew, it was the least-watched in the franchise. Season 2 increased those numbers, but it’s wild spending in that context.
Disney, however, came away with one of the best Star Wars projects in the history of the franchise. Some say it’s the best thing that’s been made in the universe outside of the original trilogy. Some may even squeeze Return of the Jedi out of that too. It’s universally beloved, and so if nothing else, Disney bought the idea that they can make something great with Star Wars if all the stars align.
It is hard to imagine the stars aligning like this again.
That kind of spending on this kind of project with that much freedom with that many episodes in an increasingly competitive streaming landscape as Star Wars heads mostly back to film? You can see the problem there. The problems. Many problems.
But at least we got Andor. We’ll always have that.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
