The 9 Most Expensive Streaming Movies of All-Time

Costly theatrical movies are infamous. The likes of Cleopatra still dominate the imaginations of moviegoers decades after their respective releases simply because of their infamous cost overruns. The same can be said for titles like Waterworld, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, and other costly box office misfires more known for their finances than anything within the movies themselves. Big-screen movies and their costs have become quite notorious, but what about streaming-exclusive films? Not necessarily theatrical films that got dumped to streaming like Soul or The Tomorrow War. What about motion pictures made for streaming first and foremost that ended up costing a fortune?

The weird release strategies behind these films and the secretive nature of these streamers mean that it’s sometimes hard to figure out or publicize the costs of these titles. In many cases, spending so much on a streaming exclusive movie is thought of as a rounding error for big companies like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and others. Still, it’s worth remembering the costliest movies ever sent directly to streaming, which includes budgets that would be hefty even among theatrical-exclusive releases.

Heart of Stone

In 2018, director Tom Harper’s Wild Rose premiered on the film festival circuit. This low-budget drama about a Scottish woman yearning to become a rock star was a very modestly budgeted affair. Cut to a few years later and suddenly Harper was helming Heart of Stone, a massively expensive Netflix original movie starring Gal Gadot. Like so many spy movies, Heart of Stone wasn’t cheap to produce, with the project costing at least $150 million to produce.

Pinocchio

Unlike many other live-action Disney Animation Studios remakes, Pinocchio went straight to the Disney+ platform. Much like its contemporaries, though, Pinocchio cost an arm and a leg to produce. Getting Tom Hanks in the primary live-action role and all the visual effects used to realize a digital protagonist didn’t come cheap, after all. This Robert Zemeckis directorial effort eventually amassed a $150-million budget, far above the costs of any other feature made exclusively for the Disney+ platform from the get-go. Unsurprisingly, Disney isn’t currently planning to send any other similarly costly projects to this streamer.

6 Underground

When you’re writing the checks for a Michael Bay directorial effort, you have to know that whatever this explosion maestro conjures up won’t be cheap. So it was with Michael Bay’s inaugural Netflix feature 6 Underground. Headlined by Ryan Reynolds and lots of elaborate action-heavy set pieces, 6 Underground cost Netflix a massive $150 million to make. Granted, that’s cheaper than the $190+-million budgets of Bay’s Transformers sequels, but this production still cost the streamer a pretty penny.

The Irishman

Martin Scorsese’s expansive modern epics have become well-known for their elaborate costs. The Wolf of Wall Street cost $100 million to make while Killers of the Flower Moon required a $200-million price tag. This auteur’s 2019 feature The Irishman was realized with a massive $156-million budget, with much of the pricetag going towards extensive digital effects work to de-age actors like Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino.

Emancipation

Will Smith’s 2017 star vehicle Bright was the first Netflix original blockbuster. It was only fitting, then, that his 2022 feature Emancipation marked a new breakthrough in how much Apple TV+ was willing to shell out for movies. When this feature was first sold to the streamer, it was reported that Apple plunked down $120 million for the project. Subsequent reports, however, indicate that this period piece drama actually cost $162 million to produce. That’s a staggering sum for a grounded drama or even a theatrical Will Smith blockbuster, never mind a film with the scope of Emancipation.

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The Rebel Moon Movies

Although released as two separate Netflix features, Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon was shot all at once as a gigantic production later split into a pair of movies at the insistence of Netflix executives. The cost of such a grand sci-fi endeavor? $166 million, which is at least cheaper than theatrical sci-fi epics like Avatar or Guardians of the Galaxy. Still, this made shooting Rebel Moon one of the costliest original movies in the history of Netflix.

Red Notice

After Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures backed out of financing it, the Dwayne Johnson/Gal Gadot/Ryan Reynolds heist movie Red Notice ended up at Netflix. In bringing this globe-trotting tentpole to life, Netflix spent a whopping $200 million. For all that moolah, Netflix hoped Red Notice would spawn a franchise the streamer could exploit for years to come. However, no further TV shows and movies have ever been made in the Red Notice universe. No hefty budget can purchase audience enthusiasm, it seems.

The Gray Man

After spending hundreds of millions on Marvel Cinematic Universe installments, directors Anthony and Joe Russo didn’t back down from spending big when it came to their first Netflix movie. 2022’s The Gray Man cost at least $200 million to make, with some outlets reporting its budget was even above that figure. Elaborate action sequences were responsible for that budget, with one particularly elaborate set piece costing $40 million to execute.

The Electric State

The Electric State won’t even hit Netflix until March 2025, but its budget is already turning heads. This latest Russo Brothers movie allegedly cost $320 million to make, roughly 60% ahead of the most conservative estimates of The Gray Man’s budget. If The Electric State were a traditional theatrical film, its budget would’ve exceeded Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the first Avatar, and Gladiator II among countless other blockbusters. Rarely has there been a clearer example of how much streamers love throwing money around.