The streaming wars continue and get even more intense with each passing day as companies pour boatloads of cash into their respective services in order to produce higher quality content and attract more viewers. While one of its biggest competitors, Netflix, might have the largest market share and most popular original programs, Amazon Prime Video boasts the largest streamable library out of all the other services.
Like most online streaming services, Amazon Prime Video also tends to be extremely tight-lipped about the production costs and budgets of their shows. As a result, the exact numbers for many series are unavailable, such as 2020's Upload and 2019's Good Omens and Carnival Row. Although these shows certainly seem to be pretty high-budget on the surface, they have been excluded from this list as reliable data about their costs are unavailable.
The Tick (2016) - $5 Million Per Episode
In a conversation about the greatest or most popular superheroes, the Tick's name would be unlikely to come up. The character had very humble beginnings as a mascot of an English comic book newsletter and even now has a relatively obscure mainstream presence. As such it was surprising to see Amazon spend as much as $5 million per episode behind such a niche property, not to mention each episode was only half an hour-long instead of the typical hour-long formats of most shows nowadays.
Good Girls Revolt (2015) - $8 Million Per Episode
TV shows getting canceled left and right without any reason is not an uncommon phenomenon in the industry. No matter how much fans might like it unless the series is reaching the expectations of its producers, which may or may not be of financial nature, it will very likely be canceled.
2015's Good Girls Revolt, a story about a group of women fighting against sexual discrimination in the news industry in 1969's America, is a prime example of this.
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (2018) - $8 Million Per Episode
American author Tom Clancy is a household name among fans of the military espionage genre, and Jack Ryan is his most popular fictional creation. The Amazon series marked the fifth time the character has gone through a live-action adaptation, having been previously portrayed by actors like Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford. The general reaction to John Krasinski was unfavorable, after all everybody knows him as the goofy prankster from The Office, but over the course of the two seasons, he has more than proved his mettle as an action hero.
Sneaky Pete (2015) - $9 Million Per Episode
Created by House MD creator David Shore and Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston, Sneaky Pete followed an ex-convict who dons the identity of his prison cellmate to hide from the dangers of his past, criminal life. With Saving Private Ryan and Avatar actor Giovanni Ribisi in the lead as "Sneaky" Pete himself, the first season of the series consisting of 10 episodes cost $93 million to make. The series was suddenly canceled by Amazon in 2019, leaving behind a fanbase full of questions and no reasons for the cancellation.
The Grand Tour (2016) - $9 Million Per Episode
The British television series Top Gear is one of the most successful programs by BBC in their history, so much so it has its name in the Guinness World Records as the "highest-viewed factual television program" with a worldwide audience of approximately 350 million.
When its main hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Jason Dawe, Richard Hammond, and James May quit the BBC show in 2015 Amazon took up this chance to start a similarly styled motor vehicle-related show of their own titled The Grand Tour.
Goliath (2016) - $10 Million Per Episode
Starring Fargo actor Billy Bob Thornton, Amazon's Goliath revolves around a lawyer Billy McBride with a tarnished reputation in search of redemption in a corrupt legal system. The first season was reportedly the most-binged show on the platform, which has probably played a part in it being continued till now despite having such an expensive costs. It was also the first show by Amazon which was made directly into a full series, in contrast to their typical method where a full-length series is only developed if the response to the pilot episode is good.
The Boys (2019) - $10 Million Per Episode
Based on the comic-book series of the same name, The Boys is currently one of Amazon's biggest hits. The cast includes some big names such as Karl Urban, and anybody who has seen the show should be able to deduce for themselves that all that top tier CGI and production quality that rivals Marvel and DC movies doesn't come cheap. An extremely bloody and vulgar spectacle, The Boys' story provides a sinisterly satirical outlook on superheroes as a whole and what it would be like if they abused their powers.
The Man in the High Castle (2015) - $10 Million Per Episode
For quite some time when it first started airing, The Man in the High Castle was Amazon's flagship series. The show took place in an alternate history dystopian world where America lost the second World War and was taken over by Germany and Japan. The concept was deemed interesting by audiences and critics, enough for Amazon to run it for 4 whole seasons before canceling it.
The first season cost them $72 million to produce, and the second $107 million, so it can be safely assumed that the later seasons were not much cheaper.
Crisis in Six Scenes (2016) - $13 Million Per Episode
With more than 50 films made over a career spanning more than six decades, Woody Allen is one of the most prolific directors in modern-day Hollywood. Unfortunately for everybody involved, Amazon was under the misconception that paying a lot of money to a high-profile director and a pop singer (Miley Cyrus) would be enough to make a successful TV show. The final product proved to be a flop both in terms of popularity and critic reviews, being labeled as a “$100 million boondoggle" by an insider.
The Lord Of The Rings (TBD) - Total Budget Of $1 Billion
Disregarding its status as a blockbuster billion-dollar film franchise with one of the biggest and loyal fanbases in the world and multiple Oscar nominations, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings is one of the best-selling and most influential book series of all time. Amazon bought the rights in 2017 for a whopping $250 million, and according to the terms of the deal five seasons will be produced of this prequel series. The reported budget of $1 billion indicates that Amazon is pulling out all stops to try and create the most epic series ever made, although it remains to be seen how successful they actually will be.