One Piece Live Action Is More Expensive Than Game Of Thrones
While fans are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming live-action One Piece series coming to Netflix, there is one thing guaranteed about the show — it cost a pirate’s bounty to make. According to a Tweet that references Netflixwoche, the official German website of Netflix, the series reportedly has a whopping per-episode budget of $17.27 million USD. That’s even more than the per-episode budget for the massive fantasy series Game of Thrones, which had a $14.79 million per-episode budget.
That certainly seems like a decently big gamble, even for a multi-billion dollar corporation like Netflix. Especially considering the streamer’s previous attempts at a live-action anime adaptation, like the Cowboy Bebop series and the Death Note movie, landed with a thud. However, the One Piece adaptation does seem like it might finally be both the critical and commercial hit that Netflix is looking for.
According to a recent report, Netflix’s upcoming live-action One Piece adaptation enjoyed a budget of over $17 million per episode.
One Piece is adapted from the massively popular Eiichiro Oda manga and the subsequent anime of the same name. It follows the young pirate adventurer Monkey D. Luffy and his band of Straw Hat pirates as they set out to find the legendary One Piece so Luffy can become the King of the Pirates.
The manga and anime are thousands of chapters strong and are still going to this day, with the recent episodes focusing on the long-awaited battle between Luffy and Kaido and Luffy’s powerful (and slightly controversial) Gear 5 transformation.
The One Piece live-action adaptation was initially met with a lot of skepticism by fans, rightfully so considering the track record of live-action anime adaptations and especially Netflix anime adaptations.
That certainly seems like a decently big gamble, even for a multi-billion dollar corporation like Netflix. Especially considering the streamer’s previous attempts at a live-action anime adaptation, like the Cowboy Bebop series and the Death Note movie, landed with a thud.
However, the infectious enthusiasm of the cast, the recent trailers and set photos, and the seeming respect for the source material have fans optimistic that the series could be the good anime adaption we’ve all been waiting for.
The Future Of Live-Action Anime Adaptations
Video game adaptations have had a recent renaissance, and maybe anime adaptations will be next.
Netflix clearly understands how massively popular anime, especially Big Three anime like One Piece, can be, considering it’s willing to pony up an eye-popping $17 million per episode. The Game of Thrones numbers are presumably pulling from the show’s eighth season, which was already a well-proven show and had massive viewership (despite the eighth season being widely panned, but that was after the fact).
Giving this anime adaptation such a massive budget is clearly a calculated risk, but the marketing for the series has been strong, so there’s hope things may work out for the best this time.
Of course, Netflix does have a built-in audience that are fans of the One Piece manga and anime, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the series is going to be popular. You can almost guarantee that if the original fans hate it, the series isn’t going to take off like they want it to. Right now, there’s no telling whether or not the series will be a huge success or another live-action anime fail, but we’ll find out soon when the series premieres on Netflix tomorrow.
