In 2021, Netflix’s League of Legends animated TV show, Arcane, became one of the biggest hits for the streaming giant in years. However, beyond Arcane, LoL studio Riot Games has reportedly struggled to develop the MOBA game into a bigger entertainment franchise. Part of the problem seems to be a lack of experience, leading to a situation where Riot Games had to pay two famous directors $5 million to not make a League of Legends movie.
In a new report from Variety about Riot Games and its attempts to make League of Legends into the next major Hollywood franchise, it’s revealed that a few years back, the video game studio was working with Anthony and Joe Russo on a League of Legends movie. The Russo brothers are famous for helping guide Marvel’s incredibly successful Avengers sequels, Infinity War and Endgame.
Variety reports that at some point Riot “reconsidered” the creative approach the company was taking with the Russos and it ended up costing the studio a lot of money. Reportedly, the Russo brothers got paid $5 million to walk away from the project due to a badly negotiated contract with the directors.
Representatives for the Russos and Riot declined to provide Variety with a comment about the failed movie project.
Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merril told Variety that the company was still committed to producing TV and movies, but admitted that it was still learning how to do that.
“Our ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed,” Merrill told Variety. “We were never intending to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines. What did change as we learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realized that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals, and teams with that in mind.”
When Variety asked about the $250 million budget for Arcane’s first two seasons, Merril didn’t confirm the price but added: “We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time.”
With Arcane’s second season arriving on November 9, and it being the end of the show, we’ll have to wait and see if Riot has learned how to keep making TV and movies or if it will be years before the next big project.
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