‘Andor’ Showrunner Confirms It Cost $650 Million, So Good Luck Doing That Again
‘Andor’ Showrunner Confirms It Cost $650 Million, So Good Luck Doing That Again
I'll never stop finding it very funny that the only hugely popular mainstream mass entertainment product that I would possibly call "leftist" without making caveats for copious amounts of lib shit is a massive budget Star Wars show produced by fucking Disney
what a time to be alive
Just goes to show that people like leftist stuff when they’re given a chance to observe it
Eh, I'd argue it's the same as most media about opposing "evil empires". It's not explicitly ideological, just vaguely anti-empire, and allows people to project whatever ideology they want onto it. I would guarantee many liberals will watch it and think "wow the emperor is Trump, Mon Mothma is just like Kamala Harris!"
People were comparing the Gorman massacre to the nasty tankies crushing the Hungarian freedom fighters, saying the empire “did a Tiananmen Square,” big evil empire is pretty easy to apply to the Soviets or China given the average level of historical literacy among the audience
That maintains its plausible deniability. In context, the massacre hits harder because 1.5 seasons have already shown the everyday reality of living within empire in a way that can’t be mistaken as vaguely anti-authoritarian. The realities of imperial maintenance are hard not to correlate with specific empires in history (it evokes alternately the British, Nazi-German, and American empires) and the logic of the anti-imperial struggle is hard not to correlate with real-world counterparts like the Bolsheviks, the Haitian revolution, the Chinese communists, and others.
It doesn’t matter if viewers are ignorant of the specific historical references, as long as they understand and agree with the logic of anti-imperialism.
I feel like Disney is such an enormous content mill of a machine that it might actually sometimes be easier to get the broader leftist messaging through, so long as you don't say that your project is explicitly about actual politics.
That movie The Creator springs to mind. That might be the most most intensely anti-American-war-machine agitprop movie since Verhoven was killing it in the 80s and the whole thing is basically a Maoist global revolution fantasy.
Sometimes capitalists are so desperate they will sell you an experience that can help you recontextualize how atrocities are committed and how empires are made in ways that are relevant to our contemporary moment. Should we take it as a sign of hope? A turn in certain western minds? Or of crushing cynicism? Another future of revolution bought and sold? I guess it's up to all of us to make something out of these times if we can.
If you haven't already, I suggest reading "Capitalist Realism" by Mark Fisher. It was written in 2009 but explores the idea of capitalists "selling" communism in pop culture
this is the hook, they invest in a high quality product like Andor, now that they have captured your subscription, they will make dozens low budget AI written shitty products and you will watch every single one hoping its as good as Andor and failing every single time.
Didn't break the BDS boycott for S2, won't start now,
I'm looking forward to the 3 season series about Max Rebo, who singlehandedly turned Mos Eisley from a "hive of scum and villainy" in the grip of the empire, and into the most groovy space sport in the Outer Rim and freed it from the storm troopers and the Hutts with the power of music.
it's going to have it's own line of Funko pops and opportunities to buy into Disney's Story Living Developments.
The total production budget of the original Star Wars trilogy, adjusted for inflation (2024 dollars), is approximately $227 million.
If they start with good writing they don't necessarily need a 650 million dollar budget
But they never do
Bit idea: bankrupting Disney by producing revolutionary agitprop
I wonder how bady Andor has hit their Empire merch sales
Well 3 things:
Lego sets of the Corsucant locales in the show would sell like hotcakes.
I was having the same thought. My girlfriend was like, "Why would anyone ever dress up as a stormtrooper? They're awful"
If anything it probably caused a bump in sales as people remembered storm troopers etc. There'll probably be a lego TIE prototype for like $600 soon.
I chuckled at how much some of the blasters were shaped like real guns: double barell shotgun on Ghor, Kleya's revolver style blaster.
Original blasters were made from prop guns of real firearms. Pretty sure Han Solo's blaster is a Mauser with some attachments.
I also remember seeing rebel troopers on Hoth with some kind of kitbashed STG44
This pretty much. Even in episode One Naboo blasters were just sporting air pistols.
The Aldhani crew just had straight-up AKs
That's just all star wars movie guns since day one
$650million was worth it for Star Wars. Consider that they're already seeing the effects of its success elsewhere in the franchise. Battlefront 2 for example went from being a dead game to having 18k concurrent players, which for an old game is insane.
That's the Andor effect. It happened at the end of Season 2, people wanted more Star Wars. This same effect will have occurred across other parts of the franchise as well.
It's extremely valuable. It will become recommended to new Star Wars fans, potentially as a starting point, or at least after watching the original trilogy. It is as valuable to the franchise as the original trilogy was. Getting a win like this will keep Star Wars alive for them for another 2 decades of sales.
Needs CW and nsfw tag, article mentions SV without warning
So you're telling me they could have had 30 minute long episodes and twice as many of them?
Back to the regularly scheduled Baby Yoda merch ads
how many homeless people could have been housed for a year for that much money?
Frankly tired of people praising yet another garbage show that uses SV to make itself seem "serious" and "gritty".
I really don't think that's the take you'd come away with after actually watching the show.
It's not doing the Game of Thrones thing at all.
I won't be watching it, these sorts of plotlines always cordon off actual SV victims from the media. It doesn't matter how "tasteful" it is, it's slop that ultimately trivializes SV for the profit motive
I stopped watching after about 3 episodes, it didn't hook me. I was hoping for Star Wars meets The Wire, I wanted to see how the cities worked how they're run and how local government and policy affect day to day life for people in this universe.
It's interesting that liberals and fascists have also not liked this part specifically. Somehow depicting the empire as more than a force that makes trains run on time has had an impact on cultural discourses and ruffled feathers across political and ideological lines. And since the assailant is killed and the crime is violently refused by a lone woman, it is difficult to invent a victim narrative or a savior narrative to relieve the tension of depicting imperialism in this way.
Furthermore, I think the idea that Andor works to make the empire seem gritty misses how mundane the empire is shown. The show isn't trying to get gritty. It's saying that SV is a mundane and obvious part of empire building. Leaving it out carries its own risks, just as depicting it carries other risks.
... but its also not necessary to depict it.
Is the torture scene on Ferrix not enough deeply personal abuse?
It's saying that SV is a mundane and obvious part of empire building. Leaving it out carries its own risks, just as depicting it carries other risks.
Well you see akshually in my toy empire it shows real empire chews people up like you, I love toy empire media. I will defend this use of "art" in my toy empire at the expense of limiting access to media for actual victims. I'm so glad toy empire show is so popular I can't stop talking about it I hope they make more and get more profit
☝️🤓
I didn't even realize what scene you were talking about until I googled it. I disagree that it's used to make it more serious and gritty.
that's not what andor is so thanks for playing
$650,000,000. Where?
Yeah it was sets
I would argue that the set construction is movie level and probably eats up a huge amount of that. How many locations are in Andor and how many of them are fully constructed sets with painstaking amounts of detail put into making them feel real and lived in rather than styrofoam backgrounds like most television series? Every single one has a completely unique culture and architecture too.
They even designed an entire fashion style for Gorman.
The production values in this were insane, so the insane costs aren't surprising.
They built entire city block sized sets. For example the wedding arc was 3 episodes showing off an entire realized set. Thats why you had so many walking montages.
I absolutely love the long walking shot at the start of that arc, it's completely uninterrupted and has 7 or 8 different scene interactions with different characters.
still didn't watch it
I'm stickin with my old movies and Praveen Mohan videos