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?

Question

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?

In: 132

Answer 1

It’s mostly about differential standards and economies of scale.

*differential standards*

If 20 minutes of a movie is a trainwreck, then the movie as a whole is pretty much a trainwreck, even if the rest of it is fine. If one episode of a season of a TV show is a trainwreck, that’s “the bad episode”. As a result, you tend to end up being less perfectionist during the production of a TV episode then you would for a movie. This is super important as you can think of quality as something that has diminishing returns. There’s no real upper bound to quality for a movie, but if you had to score it, think of it like this… every 10% of additional quality is going to add 50% more to the overall budget and time to make the movie. The easiest example is the number of takes shots and takes you might do for a critical scene.

*economies of scale*

Virtually everything you do for a movie is _bespoke_. It gets used once and then thrown away. This is even more common in today’s environment when production design for a top tier movie is expected to be unique and have it’s own identity. The sets you build for Avengers Endgame aren’t going to get re-used anywhere.

For a TV show, you’re re-using almost everything from one episode to the next. That applies to everything… everything gets cheaper when you’re going to be buying lots of it, including services from other companies. Think about it… a special effects house that’s doing work for a movie production is going to demand a higher rate of pay, because a) the production can probably afford it and b) they don’t know when the next paycheck like that is coming, so they have to charge more to stay afloat. On the other hand if you know that you’re going to be getting work from a TV show for a significant amount of time you can charge them less per delivered hour of work because it’s a more steady income stream.