How much money for effects would it cost to put a high powered hero on TV?

[KingMadness]

I've been thinking a lot about Wonder Woman lately. Seeing the terrible pilot only fueled my inquiry. I've been wondering how to adapt her into a T.V series, how to make her costume more modern, and how to make her origins/character more humanized and substantive while retaining her classic self. I have spent hours drawing different WW costumes, and spent hours researching Wonder Woman's story and villains, trying to find ways to best put her story together on a TV series/comic. I have finally come to solid solutions to these problems, and this excites me very much.

My one question is this. About how much is the average budget for a T.V series with action, and about how much money would it take to make effects for a high powered hero? Like green screen, slo-mo, making them fly, possibly having a 4 part season finally where she teams up with a Supes or Bats(keep this to yourself). I know Power Ranger shows spammed the hell out of explosions, so explosions can't be that expensive at all. There has to be ways to cut costs, like Spartacus spams Slo-mo not only because it looks cool, but so that the action scenes seem much longer and meatier than they really are. Spamming slo-mo plus tons of explosions seems logically inexpensive, and just visually better + exciting.

 

[sethypants]

The solution is depower her. No flights. Leather-ish outfit, navy boots, sliver replacing gold.
Set her to do something like what the current new 52 is doing. Pit her against her own family. The villains (gods/demi gods) should all be in human form for cheaper budget. With one or two exception like posseidon.
Make it grounded and like a darker tone similar to Supernatural. It is going to work. It will. Lower budget due to lack of effects, sticking true to comics yet in a very modernised way.

 

[Thundercrack85]

A lot. But they could certainly come up with something better than that terrible pilot. Which really, had nothing to do with the character.

It won't happen any time soon. That pilot scared away any potential investors. They also wouldn't just let them use Superman and Batman.

 

[KingMadness]

That's the problem though. Wonder Woman is supposed to be able to hold her own against Superman, she's supposed to be a beacon, a symbol of power for all the other female heroes. If you make her weak, what are you then trying to say? IMO make her more powerful, that way she gets taken seriously. There have to be ways around costs like I said, slo-mo and explosions.

 

[Thundercrack85]

It's also a matter of believability.

They didn't even let Clark Kent fly in Smallville. Though I assume that was mostly for cost reasons.

 

[Primal Slayer]

She can still have flight but not fly everywhere. WW is very doable on a tv budget. Just starting out the most expensive thing would be get her a good uniform.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

From its 8th year Smallville had a budget of $2 Million per episode and that could only buy them enough for one major use of powers per episode, and that was with them taking shortcuts like always using the Fortress set for Krypton and always using the same street for various different places in Metropolis.

It costs a lot.

 

[Primal Slayer]

2mill an episode isnt that much, esp since their budget got drastically downsized. Buffy had that budget in 2001. If it pulls in the numbers and isnt on theCW longer than usual, or on another network they would have a better budget. When Smallville just started it had 3mill per episode as a budget, Heroes had 4mill per episode.

So 3-4mill per episode budget would be good. And if you have a good showrunner/team/director you could do wonders with it probably.

 

[Webhead2006]

Actually ww would be a fairly doable character on budget. We would probably have to alter some villains to work on tv. A hero who be less doable would be green lantern or spiderman with effect driven shots needed for it, and there rouge gallery.

But if you want good budget to pull off solid effects work. You need to have bbudget of like 5-8mill per episode. Ie like early heroes/lost had. But that then is not very cost effective for a weekly series. Unless they pulled a doctor who/syfy 13-15 episode season.

Also you have to remember budget per episode accounts for everything from series cast paychecks, guest stars, crew, catering,sfx, etc.... stuff.

 

[KingMadness]

I'd probably cut back on a ridiculous amount of stuff and do things myself to cut costs.

I can help make the suit, and some of the props. I'd find unknown hidden talent which I don't have to pay much (problem is by season 3 they'd want the big bucks). There's gotta be ways to cut costs, James Cameron was a master at that.

 

[Webhead2006]

If you don't know film making process its a expensive endever. I never worked on tv series. But I worked on some independent feature films. And you be amased where budget goes for everything.

 

[sethypants]

That's the problem though. Wonder Woman is supposed to be able to hold her own against Superman, she's supposed to be a beacon, a symbol of power for all the other female heroes. If you make her weak, what are you then trying to say? IMO make her more powerful, that way she gets taken seriously. There have to be ways around costs like I said, slo-mo and explosions.

I find the notion of making a character powerful to be taken seriously a little silly. No offense but how powerful the character is has no bearings to whats makes a good story imo. Batman has no powers at all and yet he is the most popular character of all time. WW also never got her flight until 90s and i dont see how that helped make stories better. Sure it removed the need for invisible plane, but the current stories have her without flight yet produces great stories week after week.
I dont suscribe to the thought that she is a symbol for feminism. She inspires women but she definitely isnt a symbol for feminism.
So I would say depower her, make her the most powerful women in terms of strength and let that be her only powerful since she got all her other gadgets. Let her be immense in greek mytho.

 

[KingMadness]

Wonder Woman IS a symbol bro, where have you been for the last 50 years? Hawkgirl sucks, nobody cares about her, make her weak. But with Wonder Woman, a part of the DC trinity, a symbol in American pop culture, a supposed equal to Batman and Superman in her own right, the girl needs to have everything going for her, she needs to be beyond just useful. She needs to be a dominant force.

If you take away her flight and make her too weak, she can't go toe to toe with Superman and the strongest of the strong villains. You have to think long term, what if you want her to go up against a Mongul, or Darkseid, or somebody? Superman has his strength, Batman has his smarts, Wonderman should be a mix of both, the perfect warrior.

I in no way shape or form think making Wonder Woman weak is the right call, because it limits her not only in her medium but other mediums.

 

[sethypants]

Wonder Woman IS a symbol bro, where have you been for the last 50 years? Hawkgirl sucks, nobody cares about her, make her weak. But with Wonder Woman, a part of the DC trinity, a symbol in American pop culture, a supposed equal to Batman and Superman in her own right, the girl needs to have everything going for her, she needs to be beyond just useful. She needs to be a dominant force.

If you take away her flight and make her too weak, she can't go toe to toe with Superman and the strongest of the strong villains. You have to think long term, what if you want her to go up against a Mongul, or Darkseid, or somebody? Superman has his strength, Batman has his smarts, Wonderman should be a mix of both, the perfect warrior.

I in no way shape or form think making Wonder Woman weak is the right call, because it limits her not only in her medium but other mediums.

But Batman has been so successful and popular and have a huge huge cast of villains, yet the guy has no power.
Wonder Woman is the american symbol, but no the symbol for feminism.
She hasn't had her flight for 50 years and she still did great. Her hit 70s TV show never shown her with flights and that worked out very well.

She also don't need to go up against Darkseid or Mongul, they are not her villains. Her villains include Circe, Cheetah, Giganta, Ares, Veronica Cale. None of which require her to fly.

 

[KingMadness]

I guess we are just going to have to differ. Make Hawkgirl weak if you want, but Wonder Woman needs to be a dominant force from the bottom up. I've always felt Cheetah should be as strong as Wonder Woman so she could be a true archnemises, I think the Cheetah has potential to be a really cool villain (the Barbara cheetah, not the girl in a catsuit one).