1923 season 1: How expensive was it to make?

Just from watching the premiere episode alone, you can probably get the sense that 1923 season 1 was not a cheap show to produce. It is enormous in scale, and it strived to be authentic as much as humanly possible. That meant, at times, going around and even filming in multiple parts of Africa.

What we’re trying to say here is that the show is not cheap. Heck, it could be up there with House of the Dragon as one of the priciest out there. (It’s still not at the level of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but very few things are.)

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Let’s get down to some of the details here. As a part of a new interview with Deadline, show executive producer Taylor Sheridan claims that each episode of 1923 costs between $30 and $35 million to make, and it seems in particular the talent, plus the scenes in Africa, are the biggest reasons why:

“You know how hard it is to move a crew around in Africa in 2022 with [the global health crisis], and all the rules and all the politics? … We were in [three] countries in Africa. It’s not like we went to one little preserve in South Africa.”

As the season goes along, we anticipate that the scope and the ambition is only going to expand, and credit has to go to Sheridan for pulling this off. Just think about this for a moment — there was an era where producing Westerns wasn’t thought to be cost-effective or even relevant to any viewers out there. Now, there’s a problem in this genre that not only costs this large of a price tag, but can actually back it up! Remember that 1923 set a record for Paramount+ for its premiere; we already know that a season 2 is going to be coming down the road, as well.

Are you shocked at all by the hefty price tag when it comes to 1923 season 1?

Be sure to let us know in the attached comments, and also come back for some other updates.

Photo: Paramount+