Summary
Netflix’s popular animated seriesArcanehas now aired its final second season, which revolves around Riot’sLeague of Legendsuniverse, and boasts a massive production budget of $250 million. The series’ executive music producer, Alex Seaver, explains why the highly anticipatedArcaneseason two needed such a large amount spent on it. Produced by Riot Games and Fortiche Production, the action-packed and engaging show, which stars Ella Purnell as Jinx and Hailey Steinfeld as Vi, broke away from Netflix’s past standards for animated series' by creating a truly complex and visually compelling world that didn’t hide away from its darker, grittier themes.
AfterArcaneseason one,League of Legendsfans were champing at the bit to dive into more of the universe’s lore, and, seemingly, they weren’t disappointed when season two rolled back around three years later. On Rotten Tomatoes,Arcaneseason two scored an extremely impressive 100% with critics and 97% with audiences and was even in the top 10 most-watched Netflix series in 89 countries. Due to its mind-blowing success, it’s easy to see whyArcane’s second season will be talked about in the same breath assome of the best-animated shows ever, possibly even overtaking other beloved series' likeCastlevania,Invincible, andAvatar: The Last Airbender.
Arcane Season 2’s Music Producer Explains Why Budget Was $250 Million
When even a long-termThe Walking Deadstar announces thatArcaneis betterthan their own show, Riot Games and Fortiche Production know they’ve certainly made something special. One ofArcane’s most talked about factors is how well its soundtrack is used to emphasize its storytelling, with a range of popular songs from Linkin Park to Fever 333. The executive music producer ofArcane,Alex Seaver, talked withScreen Rantabout why the series needed to push such a hefty $250 million budget, and in turn, made it the most expensive animated series of all time. Seaver said thatArcane’s lengthy production time and cost were due to Riot Games' striving for perfection throughout the production process, stating that they are not a “film and television studio, we’re a game company.”
The show is made by Riot Games, which is, I think, one of the reasons it took a long time to make. There’s all these articles about how expensive it was, it is because we are not a film and television studio, we’re a game company. But I think it’s also the reason that in some respects this broke a video game adaptation curse, or whatever people say, is because these people care the most about the game. They made it. We didn’t lease out the work to traditional people in film and television, which can totally work. But for something like this, the special sauce is that it’s made in the building and we do all the animation in Paris at Fortiche, but they’re kind of like us now. We’ve been working with them for five or six years on some of our biggest music beats.
Seaver creditedArcane’s showrunner Christian Linke’s love for “animation in high art form” and ease of communication among all parties so that everyone knows exactly what’s happening at all times. Themusic producer forArcanealso highlights how massive the production of the show was, which took over 10 years to craft, and its huge budget went not only toArcane’s incredibly talented animators, but also to the writers, directors, and cast, so its $250 million budget seems to be wholly justified.
And [showrunner] Christian [Linke] just found them. He loves animation in high art form. And so the squad is really Fortiche and Riot Games. We have talks every single week. We’re in communication. We do a bunch of trips out to Paris and that’s the whole thing. It’s written by us and the music’s made by us with wonderful artists. That’s probably why it feels so much like a team, is that it’s all just going on in the building. And that’s why the Easter eggs and the references to the champions are so deep and so dense, because it’s the people that invented Vi and Jinx. That wrote them into existence. Are writing Arcane. They wrote those characters 10 years ago or whatever, and now here they are. I think that’s one of the reasons that it’s got such a cool sense of itself.
WhileArcaneseason two marks the end of the animated series, things aren’t over just yet.Arcaneco-creator and showrunnerChristian Linketeased what’s in store for the nextLeague of Legendsseries, confirming that Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia will be making their way into the cinematic universe. Although there’s no indication when fans will get their eyes on the next adventure, Linke did reveal that they had been working on its process for over a year.
Arcane
Cast
Arcane is an animated series developed by Alex Yee and Christian Linke that follows a the story of Piltover and Zaun, two pivotal locations in the League of Legends universe. The first season follows the stories of Jynx and Vi, as well as Jayce and Viktor.
