Why do movies take longer to film than series episodes that are the same length in time? (Both the movie and individual episodes are about an hour long)

Question

Why do movies take longer to film than series episodes that are the same length in time? (Both the movie and individual episodes are about an hour long)

In: 6

Answer 1

One major reason is that most TV shows have their main sets and props already built and their cast of main characters already hired. Movies have to do all that from scratch each time.

Another reason is that most movies tend to have much higher budgets than equivalently-long TV show episodes. The increased spending obviously results in more man-hours of labor needed to process all the extra spending. Things like doing multiple takes of the same scene over and over again, which TV show episodes don’t typically have the budget to keep doing nearly as much as movies do.

Then there’s also the special effects. Higher budget means better special effects, which means more time spent getting effects just right. Same thing with designing the sets, props, and costumes in the first place (which, again, movies often have to do from scratch each time).