The much-anticipated fourth season of Stranger Things is set to be the biggest yet for the series, and the cost to make it so is allegedly just as big as this new season is said to have a per-episode cost of $30 million.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, this news comes via a longer article about Netflix's shift to being more cost-conscious after years of "prioritizing growth over cost-efficiency." Stranger Things was used as an example of a show that needs "under-the-radar, relatively low-cost hits" to balance out its massive price tag.
"Under-the-radar, relatively low-cost hits are necessary to balance out the costs for big-ticket programming such as the special-effects-filled show Stranger Things, whose new season has a per-episode cost of $30 million, according to people close to the show," WSJ writes.
This would make Stranger Things fourth season one of the most expensive seasons in history, and it would put it above the Halo TV series' budget of $10 million per episode, Game of Thrones' final season budget of $15 million per episode, The Mandalorian's $15 million per episode price tag, and the $25 million per episode budget said to accompany Disney+'s Marvel shows. While it may not be quite as expensive as the reported $465 production budget of Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings series, it is still one of the biggest.
This "holy grail" for Netflix is shows like Squid Game and Virgin River that do not cost nearly as much as a Stranger Things would but still become bonafide hits. Virgin River, for example, cost roughly $3 million per episode. Bridgerton, on the other hand, costs "more than three times as much" and is not as efficient as Netflix desires.
This particular focus on success without breaking the bank also comes with the danger of quickly cancelling shows that are not "resonating," even if they are very expensive like Jupiter's Legacy and Hit and Run. Those two projects were cancelled after only about a month on Netflix.
Stranger Things is obviously a huge moneymaker for Netflix, and one of the biggest reasons is that it draws people back in who may not be regular subscribers. Netflix values shows like these that appeal to "less-frequent users of the service, who are the most in danger of canceling their subscription, compared with heavy users, company executives said."
For more, check out our Stranger Things season 4 trailer breakdown with the Duffer brothers, our look at who the new villain is, and how Netflix is slashing animation amid subscriber drops.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.