Prime Video’s Citadel has become one of the most costly series ever made due to budget overruns and a substantial creative makeover. Written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, Citadel was supposed to be a “mothership” series that would eventually spawn several spinoffs, but the project ran into trouble late last year, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The pilot episode had reportedly been poorly received by the production team. Prime Video considered a few different versions of the film before ultimately selecting the one over which Joe and Anthony Russo presided as executive producers. Line producer Sarah Bradshaw and directors Brian Kirk (who oversaw five of the seven episodes) and Appelbaum were also put go.
Newton Thomas Sigel, who previously worked with the Russos on Cherry and Extraction, was engaged to manage the reshoots, while Hunters author David Weil was enlisted to conduct rewrites. Sigel has worked with difficult movies before since he was the longtime cameraman for now-infamous filmmaker Bryan Singer. After an initial budget of $160 million, THR reports that “upwards of $250 million” has been spent on the programme due to reshoots. However, the insiders did point out that Citadel was approved before the pandemic, thus the extra expenses associated with safety were not taken into account. Obviously, a radical redesign also wasn’t an option. The Hollywood Reporter claims that the opening of Appelbaum and Nemec’s version is an action sequence that establishes the film’s espionage tone before the story jumps ahead in time by five years.
The action sequence was edited out of Russos’ version. Disagreements over the conflicting cutbacks led to the formation of factions, with Prime Video finally choosing to support Joe, who had emerged as Appelbaum’s principal opponent. As one person with knowledge of the project put it: Joe should have turned to Josh and said, “Let’s join together and fix this” instead of doing it alone. That’s not what a committed couple does. It might make financial sense to value the input of two of the highest-grossing living directors. Though they are most known for directing four MCU films, the Russo brothers’ career after leaving the studio has been a mixed bag, and not only in terms of quality.
Cherry, a murder thriller, and The Gray Man, an action spectacular, both garnered middling reviews and high ticket prices. The Gray Man ($250 million) is still Netflix’s most costly original picture, but THR reports that the more modest Cherry ($20 million) also had budget overruns. The first season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power apparently cost a staggering $465 million, making Citadel the second most expensive series of all time. The mothership series stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, and it is intended to launch a global espionage brand with local spinoffs based in India, Italy, and Mexico. The release date of Citadel is currently unknown since work has moved into the post.