Citadel starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden under scrutiny for over Rs. 2000 crore budget; Amazon CEO questions ‘liberal spending’

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has asked for budget analysis after ‘liberal spending’ on Citadel and several other shows over the nine months which failed to create any mark.

By Bollywood Hungama News Network -

July 7, 2023 - 11:47 AM IST

Prime Video original Citadel starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden, which premiered in April 2023, has come under scrutiny after the series was reportedly made on a budget of a whopping $250 million (over Rs. 2000 crore) but failed to create much mark in terms of viewership. The series reportedly did not register among the top 10 most-watch streaming programmers in the US, as per Neilsen. Now, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has asked for budget analysis after ‘liberal spending’ on Citadel and several other shows over the nine months which failed to create any mark.

Citadel starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden under scrutiny for over Rs. 2000 crore budget; Amazon CEO questions ‘liberal spending’

As per a report in Bloomberg, “People familiar with the matter” told the media outlet that six major shows underperformed in the last nine months. The report further stated, “Amazon spent $7 billion on original shows, licensed programs and sports, up from $5 billion the year before.”

Though Citadel has already been renewed for a season 2, the show is getting local adaptations with Italy and India-centric stories. However, the report reveals that even though Amazon has boasted of the popularity of the series internationally, it provided no data for the same.

Amazon Studios is led by Jennifer Salke, who had approached Russo Brothers for the development of Citadel. Their production house AGBO’s creative partners, screenwriter Josh Appelbaum, and TV writer Bryan Oh were creating a spy thriller about “dueling spy rings” – one good and one evil. The budget for each episode was $20 million per episode, however, owing to the pandemic and the Russo Brothers’ creative changes, the budget skyrocketed. The report further reveals, “They (Russo Brothers) wanted to eliminate the love story between characters played by Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and didn’t like other plot elements. The Russos began to play around with a different version of the show in post-production, which is when completed scenes get edited into an actual program. While the main post-production office was in London, the Russos set up a second editing group in Los Angeles and cut an alternate version of the series. They submitted it to Amazon without showing it to the full team. The folks in London then rushed to get their cut of the show to Amazon.” When the studio went the vision of the Russo Brothers, they also brought in writer David Weil to overhaul the script. This led to reshoots of more than half the series. The budget then skyrocketed by $80 million. As per the latest reports, Joe Russo is directing the second season of Citadel and will get $25 million per episode.

The report coincides with the massive layoffs. It reveals that the other major shows that failed to crack Nielson’s list are Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers and The Peripheral which were made over $100 million to produce. Even Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power ($400 million-plus), as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, was a massive show but did not garner the response it was intended for.