World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

Does anyone know how much the budget was for the original series and the new one?

From looking online, it seems the Pilot was shot for $3-4 million. Is this accurate?

And ABC bought Season 1 with a budget of $1.1 million per episode.

What about Season 2? Would that have been the same or less? For some reason, I can't see ABC buying Season 2 for $22-24 million in total.

According to Wiki, FWWM had a $10 million budget. That's not bad considering a movie like "Scream" had a similar one only four years later. I know it's still low, but for some reason, I thought it had a much lower budget.

And do you think we'll ever get an idea what the budget was for The Return?

Jonah wrote:
What about Season 2? Would that have been the same or less? For some reason, I can't see ABC buying Season 2 for $22-24 million in total.

I'd say Season 2 would have to be more than Season 1. The show was renewed at the height of its popularity (as I recall, they announced it the day before the S1 finale aired), I'm sure MacLachlan, Ontkean, Fenn, Laurie and several others got pay bumps. Plus the cast was so much larger in S2 that overhead would have to be higher.

As for Season 3, here's a good starting point for discussion:

https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/tv-ser ... 202570158/

The estimates on the cost of content that emerged from these interviews peg the typical range of the production budget for high-end cable and streaming dramas at $5 million-$7 million an hour, while single-camera half hours on broadcast and cable run from $1.5 million to more than $3 million. With the exception of HBO, which made its mark with lavish productions, that’s a significant increase, during just the past five years, over what had been $3 million-$4 million for cable dramas and around $1 million-$1.5 million for single-camera half hours.

Just taking a wild guess: perhaps Lynch was asking for the high end of an HBO style budget, whereas Showtime wanted something closer to the $3-$4 million dollar range.

mtwentz wrote:
Just taking a wild guess: perhaps Lynch was asking for the high end of an HBO style budget, whereas Showtime wanted something closer to the $3-$4 million dollar range.

Perhaps - but Twin Peaks S3 is a unique animal among TV productions against which industry standards can't really be applied. It was shot over one continuous schedule as opposed to episodically so there had to have been efficiencies. Most of the cast worked for scale.

My personal assumption is that Lynch presented a lump-sum budget for the initial 9-hour production, Showtime balked at it and demanded that he either reduce the budget or increase the # of episodes so that they could amortize the costs over a longer period of subscription cycles. So perhaps his first estimate was $50M for 9 episodes but they settled for $75M for 18 episodes or something like that. A higher overall budget to be sure, but nearly five billing cycles to recoup as opposed to just over two.

dkenny78 wrote: A higher overall budget to be sure, but nearly five billing cycles to recoup as opposed to just over two.

So, perhaps a more fitting title than "Twin Peaks: The Return" would have simply been "Re-Coop".

eyeboogers wrote:
So, perhaps a more fitting title than "Twin Peaks: The Return" would have simply been "Re-Coop".

Haha, perfect!

I was going to start a new thread about this but then found this one when I searched, so decided to reactivate it.

Were the Twin Peaks cast among the lowest paid actors in a major, successful, famous television show?

We know they only got scale for The Return and I heard they didn't get much better for the original series. Can anyone elaborate on this?

I don't really want to know individual cast salaries as that's none of our business imo - but you always hear about big cast salaries on shows like Friends, or on LOST, so it surprises me that the TP cast seems to have missed out on this. I mean, back in 1990 and 1991 the show was a pretty big hit, so what happened? And do they still get residuals?

Also curious about the budget for the original series if anyone knows more than what's already been posted above?

In a Usenet post from near the end of season 2 (when the show was cancelled), Scott Frost’s relative relayed that the average budget was $1.3 million an episode.

It seems weird that apparently the cast got the short end of the stick on salaries considering the budget. I know the cast was huge - which would have contributed to smaller salaries - and many were local hires with not much previous roles, but it's still a shame. They never even got to make a big payday on the revival. Just a shame all round when you hear what some of the actors are making for shows.

Jonah wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 9:27 am It seems weird that apparently the cast got the short end of the stick on salaries considering the budget. I know the cast was huge - which would have contributed to smaller salaries - and many were local hires with not much previous roles, but it's still a shame. They never even got to make a big payday on the revival. Just a shame all round when you hear what some of the actors are making for shows.

I think it’s common for cast members to sign a contract for a low rate when initially starting a series, then re-up once the series becomes successful. Sadly, the TP cast never had a chance due to the cancelation. The Simpsons cast made peanuts originally until they went on strike, now they’re millionaires. Connery was always resentful that the James Bond producers got rich while he made almost nothing due to being held to the terms of his original six-film contract. I guarantee Schwimmer and Aniston didn’t make much the first season or two of Friends.

Of course, TR was a different story, where actors were willing to take scale to work with Lynch.

I wonder why they didn't get to renegotiate for Season 2. I imagine some of them might have and maybe Kyle did okay by it, and some of the more prominent young cast members, but I've always heard none of them were making much on it.

Jonah wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 9:33 am I wonder why they didn't get to renegotiate for Season 2. I imagine some of them might have and maybe Kyle did okay by it, and some of the more prominent young cast members, but I've always heard none of them were making much on it.

No clue. I wonder if this ever came up in Brad’s interviews for his book. $1.3 million does seem a pretty high budget for that era of television given that the series was mostly shot on sets that had already been built. I wonder where that money was going?