'Game of Thrones' season 8 has a massive $90 million budget

This truly is the golden age of television, with studios willing to pay top dollars to ensure high-quality content for viewers. In line with the growing budgets across the board for premium shows, the final season of “Game of Thrones” reportedly has a budget of $90 million (about AU$115 million).

According to a report by Variety, each of the six episodes in season 8 of the popular HBO TV series has a budget of $15 million (about AU$19 million). Just to compare, a typical premium TV series generally has a budget of $5 to $7 million (about AU$6 to AU$9 million). A more elaborate show like “The Crown” has a budget of $10 million (about AU$13 million) per episode.

Although $15 million per episode is a lot of money for a TV series, Netflix CFO David Wells believes there’s still room for an even higher budget. With viewership increasing for television, Wells believes it is possible to have a budget of $20 million (about AU$25 million) per episode.

What does the increased budget mean for “Game of Thrones”? To begin, the increase is understandable as there are multiple battles that will be fought as the story moves forward. Apart from the army of the dead, which includes people, giants and animals like polar bears, the other big visual effects scenes will involve dragons.

The spectacular visuals will not be the only thing fans can look forward to. According to a report by Vanity Fair, even the individual episodes will be longer. The longest episode so far on the show was the season 7 finale, which was just short of 80 minutes. Each episode of next season is said to be longer than that.

Pre-production work of “Game of Thrones” season 8 has already begun. The producers are yet to announce an exact release date.