Spoilers Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
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I dont think D+ existed back then...
Moffat right now:
I thought they were budgeting more because they looked like they were $10 million per episode seasons.
RTD debunked the '10m per episode' thing very shortly after the Disney+ partnership was announced.
Deadline, in their article on why Disney was less than enthused, says it was closer to $8.5 million an episode.
deadline.com
Which still boggles the mind.
Why Disney Ditched ‘Doctor Who’: Sources Say Ratings, Big Ticket Budget & MAGA Politics Were Factors In BBC Deal Failing To Regenerate
The BBC confirmed on Tuesday that its 'Doctor Who' co-production deal with Disney had vaporized. What went wrong on the series starring Ncuti Gatwa?
deadline.com
Which still boggles the mind.
I meant 'that' sentence for the Moffat/Chibnall era.
RTD has reportedly said that it was "a nice little bit of money, more than we had before"Deadline, in their article on why Disney was less than enthused, says it was closer to $8.5 million an episode.
Why Disney Ditched ‘Doctor Who’: Sources Say Ratings, Big Ticket Budget & MAGA Politics Were Factors In BBC Deal Failing To Regenerate
The BBC confirmed on Tuesday that its 'Doctor Who' co-production deal with Disney had vaporized. What went wrong on the series starring Ncuti Gatwa?
Which still boggles the mind.
$8 mil per episode still sounds high, Wheel of Time had about $10 mil per episode and had location shooting all over Europe, and bespoke costuming etc.
Jack Ryan was reportedly closer to $8 per.
All we have is speculation tho..
Deadline are notorious for being wildly wrong with budgets on movies & TV shows, plus they have a weird anti-BBC agenda in general.
They made the three specials without Disney money, and the bump in visuals between that and the series wasn’t huge — except, basically, *more*.
Frankly, the money wasn’t needed — the biggest visuals weren’t exactly necessary (outside of Lux) and the guest stars weren’t exactly stratospheric (In the old days, Norton and Rylan would have been basically free. The advantages of seeing who was knocking about the BBC cafeteria… if NuWho hadn’t have been made in Cardiff, they would have done another Big Finish/Radio 7 live action remake of Max Warp and got actually CHM I imagine.) so it doesn’t even need the 8m this bunch allegedly cost.
(Goodness knows they better use the shit out of the Vlinx in War Between, that thing is looking like a massive waste of money more and more. Kamelion was second hand at least.)
Truth is, in terms of money on screen, Jodie’s era was fine, as was Smith and Capaldi’s. Inflations gonna bump that up, and TV production in this country is a bit fucked, but it doesn’t need a huge budget, it just needs some consistency and a bit of fixing what was broke.
Frankly, the money wasn’t needed — the biggest visuals weren’t exactly necessary (outside of Lux) and the guest stars weren’t exactly stratospheric (In the old days, Norton and Rylan would have been basically free. The advantages of seeing who was knocking about the BBC cafeteria… if NuWho hadn’t have been made in Cardiff, they would have done another Big Finish/Radio 7 live action remake of Max Warp and got actually CHM I imagine.) so it doesn’t even need the 8m this bunch allegedly cost.
(Goodness knows they better use the shit out of the Vlinx in War Between, that thing is looking like a massive waste of money more and more. Kamelion was second hand at least.)
Truth is, in terms of money on screen, Jodie’s era was fine, as was Smith and Capaldi’s. Inflations gonna bump that up, and TV production in this country is a bit fucked, but it doesn’t need a huge budget, it just needs some consistency and a bit of fixing what was broke.
One positive from that Deadline article is that fact that Who doesn't necessarily need millions and millions thrown at it to make decent episodes. It might just mean more eps like 73 Yards and less like The Interstellar Song contest.
Honestly, say what you want about the CC era and I’m not a fan, but it generally looked great IMHO
It didn't, but that was still the time for a big American super conglomerate to get in...
Hell, "The Interstellar Song Contest" could work on a lesser budget and still feel at home.
All the money and extras, and half of it is still about 4 people in a corridor.
Same is true for Story and the Engine — recreated a Nigerian Market, probably had to bus the extras into Wales, for what… two walkabout scenes in a story that otherwise basically took place on three or four sets?
Might have been cheaper to do a quick guerilla location shoot in actual Nigeria.
At the other end of the scale, a man in a suit with a mask would have actually worked better (and historically, has) in place of the more-expensive CGI mess in both finales.
The reason I'm highly suspicious of budget claims is that there's very little in the past two series that looks massively better than 'Power of the Doctor'.
I feel Eddie Robson has the right of it: "Bearing in mind the cost of effects work was bumped up by Disney's requirement for it all to be done in 4k, whereas previously most episodes were made in 1080 HD, added to the general inflation of TV budgets across the board, that sounds more sensible to me."
Eddie Robson (@eddierobson.bsky.social)
Today's Deadline article on the Who Disney deal gives a much lower figure (£6-8m per episode), which rather gives the impression yesterday's figure (£10m) was what we in the industry call "a guess". https://deadline.com/2025/10/why-disney-ditched-doctor-bbc-1236601181/
bsky.app
Apparently there are, shock, people of colour in Wales you know.
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