While Amazon has been very vocal about Citadel being a raging success for Prime Video, the spy thriller series didn't really seem to make much of a dent in the streaming world. Sure, the series managed to sit at the top of Prime Video's charts during its run, but it never cracked the top ten for most-watched streaming series in the US during that time, as Nielsen data shows. But the success of Citadel isn't the major storyline here, no, rather it's the actual budget of the series, which turned out to be absolutely massive.
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Citadel cost Amazon over $250 million to make, making it one of the most expensive TV shows of all-time. It isn't Prime Video's most expensive show, as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and its rumoured $400 million-plus budget still holds that title, but Citadel's $250 million budget is enough to dwarf most other series.
But expensive TV isn't new to Amazon, as the report also reveals that Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers, and The Peripheral all cost over $100 million to make as well, with each failing to make a dent in Nielsen rankings to boot.
Amazon doesn't share specific data regarding how its shows perform, so there's no way of knowing how well Citadel and the likes have performed around the world.
