Season 4 of ‘The Witcher’ is over the budget and has the highest costs according to Netflix

Netflix revealed yesterday that the fourth season of The witch Is overbudget and costs more to make than any other episode in the Sword and Sorcery series.

The fourth season has to make his debut next month and has praised controversy for his casting. The Australian Hunk Liam Hemsworth has replaced fan favorite Henry Cavill in the title role that causes strong criticism of the first images of the new season released last week. There is a lot on the line.

That is The witch is one of the most popular shows of Netflix is ​​somewhat an understatement. When the first season premiered in 2019, it was viewed the most viewed original series of the streamer with 541 million hours in the first 28 days. It continued with collecting more than 1.2 billion hours of KIJK, so although it is not cheap, the well -spent money is.

If this report explained every season The witch and his prequel Leap were made in the United Kingdom, where studios benefit from a reimbursement of 25.5% of the production costs incurred in the country. Part of the reimbursement process includes the studio on setting up a production company in the UK for every program that makes it there. The companies must all submit financial statements that show everything, from the workforce and the salaries to the total costs and the level of reimbursement.

The archives are legally binding, so there is no doubt about their accuracy. Similarly, the conditions of the reimbursement say that the financial statements must show the full costs of the production, not only those in the UK, moreover, studios should not hide the costs in other companies, because the conditions also state that there can only be one production company per program.

The financial statements are released in phases long after the period to which they relate. This starts during pre-production and continues after the premiere to give the production team time to ensure that all bills are paid. It explains why the company behind the second season of The witch Still books costs in his financial statements, although it debuted in 2021.

The files released yesterday shows that it has risen $ 448,822 (£ 357.197) in costs during the year until December 31, 2024, while the Netflix subsidiary company makes the fifth season The witch Spent $ 13.4 million (£ 10.6 million) in pre-production prior to the start of filming in March of this year.

The biggest revelation, however, was that the production company behind the fourth season last year spent no less than $ 178.2 million (£ 141.8 million) when all films took place together with a few months of pre-production and post production. It brought the total costs of season four to $ 220.4 million (£ 175 million) that is higher than any other delivery (see graph below) with months after the production that remains after the date of 31 December of the financial statements.

His personnel costs alone came to $ 24.5 million (£ 19.4 million) with employee numbers that last year peaked a monthly average of 309 people without even counting freelancers, contractors and temporary employees, because they are not mentioned as employees in British companies, although they often represent the majority of the crew.

The financial statements show that “the total costs of the program were more than the budgeted costs”, although it also received a fee of $ 56.5 million (£ 44.9 million) that yielded the net expenditure at $ 163.9 million. This was not only higher than the net spending on another episode of The witchIt was also more than double the net spending of season one. The fourth season is falling on October 30, just in time for Halloween, so we will soon find out if it was well spent.