“Andor” creator Tony Gilroy revealed that the Disney+ series had a hefty price tag of $650 million, but he had to fight for season two’s budget.
‘Andor’ Budget
“I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million,” he explained at the ATX Television Festival on Thursday. “For 24 episodes, I never took a note. We said ‘F**** the Empire’ in the first season, and they said, ‘Can you please not do that?’ … In Season 2, they said, ‘Streaming is dead, we don’t have the money we had before,’ so we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.” (via IndieWire)
According to Variety, the writer and actor strikes that paused production of “Andor” season two added approximately $20 million to the show in shutdown costs. Individual episodes cost an estimated $20 million after tax incentives, a similar budget for episodes of “House of the Dragon” and “Severance.” The show had 24 episodes total across two seasons.
Talking about his freedom to explore the show’s heavy topics, Gilroy said, “I’ve been allowed to start using the word ‘fascism’ the last couple weeks. That’s liberating. But I don’t think it should be any surprise or even be too slippery or complicated for people to understand the road I have to walk to do all this; to maximize the audience and protect the investment of a really brave [company.]”
He said the rules regarding violence were “loosened up considerably” from “Rogue One” to “Andor” but the topic of sex was touchier.
“Yeah, we can’t have skin, but I very consciously started the first scene in a brothel just to see what would happen and how far we could go,” he explained, referencing the very first episode of “Andor.”
The series finale of “Andor” was released on Disney+ on May 13, 2025. The show is a prequel to “Rogue One” focused on the character of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and other members of the Rebel Alliance, including Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).
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