A Disney filing confirms that that the cost of producing the first two seasons of Star Wars streaming series “Andor” ballooned to $645M after the mouse house spent over $290M last year on filming its second season, set to premiere in April 2025 (via Forbes). This easily makes it the most expensive Star Wars project ever, surpassing 2019’s “The Last Jedi.”
Remarkably, Forbes adds that the final budget for “Andor” season 2 will actually be much higher than the $290M figure given since the filing doesn’t cover all of the shoot. When all is said and done, we might be looking at a production cost in excess of $350M, making it one the most expensive seasons in the history of television. The current “champ” is Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” which had a budget of $465M for its first season.
Filming on the second season of “Andor” began in November 2022 but was suspended in summer 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. It resumed in January this year and wrapped the following month. This was followed by a year of post-production work where much of the VFX was added to the footage.
Set five years before the events of the original “Star Wars” (1977), “Andor” stars Diego Luna as a spy working for the Rebels as they try to take on the Empire, led by Darth Vader. It’s one of the few successful Star Wars shows from Disney since the mouse house’s $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012.