After “The Pitt,” a medical drama that takes place in “actual time” throughout a 15-hour shift at a fictional Pittsburgh hospital (albeit with filming areas that embrace the outside of a actual Pittsburgh hospital), premiered on Max in January 2025, the collection grew to become a direct hit … and also you could be shocked that, in comparison with different HBO juggernauts, it is comparatively low cost to supply.
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In a characteristic concerning the collection’ success by IndieWire, govt producer and director John Wells — who got here up with the thought for the collection together with his fellow “ER” veterans and mates R. Scott Gemmill (who serves as showrunner) and Noah Wyle (who stars as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch) — revealed that the collection prices about $4 or $5 million per episode. For context, the primary season of “The Final of Us” labored with a complete funds of round $100 million, which got here out to round $10 million per episode. (Additionally, simply to make clear — though Wells, Gemmill, and Wyle all labored collectively on “ER,” this present is, for authorized causes, not a spin-off or a reboot.)
Wells defined to the outlet that the collection’ creatives have been in a position to preserve prices fairly low because of the present’s major sensible hospital set. “We weren’t making an attempt to create an amazing quantity of CGI or something,” Wells famous. “We needed to do a certain quantity of it for among the wound work. We weren’t taking pictures in open areas surrounded by 300 yards of blue display screen.”
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It is also necessary to notice right here that most HBO and Max reveals run for round 10 episodes, although this is not set in stone; season 2 of “The Final of Us” is unfold throughout solely seven episodes, whereas the third season of “The White Lotus” ran for eight chapters. Plus, as Wells identified, most medical doctors work 12-hour shifts. Nevertheless, for each storytelling functions and to appease a request from Max, the present’s creators bumped season 1’s episode depend to fifteen, and it was nonetheless price-efficient for Max.
“However for the physicians and nurses, there’s a large period of time it takes handy off all of your sufferers to the subsequent shift that is coming,” Wells mused. “However the 15 ended up being as a result of Max stated to us, ‘Are you able to do 15 hours?’ And we stated, ‘Positive.’ That is large. However a variety of the reveals that have been on HBO, like ‘The Sopranos,’ have been 12 episodes. The decreased episodes has been largely hooked up to the price of making these reveals the place you’ve these large world-constructing, tough reveals. There aren’t that many locations which can be going to spend or can afford to do 10, 12, or 15 hours of that as a result of they’re so costly. So, whenever you get a ‘Home of the Dragon’ or ‘The Final of Us’ or ‘Severance,’ reveals which can be so costly to make, you are not going to make 15 of them. It is simply not an financial actuality.”
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