Eli5 Why do movies, sometimes with just one star actor and usually less than 3 hours long, take years to make, but shows, which often have many stars and have hours in a season, take a winter of summer break to film, and the next season is out?
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On top of what others have said I think you may also be conflating “development” with “filming”. Often times we will hear about a movie and that a famous actor has signed in for a key role. But when that happens, the actor is often already booked up in the immediate future. So they have to work around that schedule which could take multiple months or even over a year. Meanwhile, the writer and director will be working on the film in pre-production. Some other members of the cast may sign on but mostly this isn’t the daily work of an entire crew or film set. As they get to filming, then the crew is established and filming takes place. This usually only takes about 90 days unless they have a ton of location shoots. Then they have post-production which can vary depending on the film. And then once it’s finished, they need a distributor. Sometimes this can take a long while for a film to find one. And then once it’s found that distributor will pick a release that makes sense for the movie and the release schedule. All of these things take a timeline of a movie and stretch it out to years.
Now, in a TV show, they often have longer shoots since they have more content, and as a result those actors have less other things they can do. This means it’s easier to get them for season 2. Especially back in the day when network shows routinely had 20+ episodes per season. But additionally, the studio is paying for the show and will release it once it’s finished. So they can shoot right away and then don’t have to worry about finding somebody to buy it. And there’s also not any release window issues to deal with. Instead they just drop a TV show when it’s finished.
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