The Real Reason Netflix Canceled Arcane

“Arcane” is one of the all-time greatest animated shows, a stunning piece of animation and a truly epic video game adaptation. Just like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has pushed the medium forward on the feature side, so has “Arcane” challenged what was possible in TV animation, all while being one of the best video game adaptations ever made.

Based on the uber-popular gaming phenomenon “League of Legends,” the show portrays the origin story of several characters from the game while focusing on the story of Vi and Jinx, two sisters caught on opposite sides of a conflict between the utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun. The first season of “Arcane” was an immediate success. It became the highest-rated Netflix series at the time of its release, ganering critical acclaim and going on to become the first streaming show to win the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (while also winning three other Emmy awards).

Despite all of this, “Arcane” is coming to an end after just two seasons. The news has left fans dumbfounded, wondering why such a popular show would end so quickly. After all, the first season felt like just the start of a much larger universe, a franchise that could bring the many stories and characters from “League of Legends” to life. (The game has a vast lore and features dozens of characters with unique backstories.)

According to Variety, “Arcane” was originally planned and budgeted for a five-season arc, but now parent company and “League of Legends” developer Riot Games has stalled its entertainment output. What’s more, Variety reports that the 18 episodes of the two seasons of “Arcane” will have cost the studio $250 million to produce and promote, making it by far the most expensive animated series ever developed.

It’s no secret that “Arcane” had the budget of an animated feature — the show spent six years in production, most of which were devoted to development (which is a rare luxury in modern animation) — but this is a ludicrous amount. What’s more, sources familiar with the production report that Riot Games spent $60 million of its own money to promote the first season of “Arcane,” which Variety notes is far more than what Netflix itself spent on the show. Granted, this contributed to the series becoming a huge hit everyone on the planet was talking about, but given Riot Games already had a gaming landscape of several games with millions of users that could serve as free advertisement, this feels excessive.

It’s part of what the report by Variety paints as a very painful and extremely costly set of inexperienced woes for the gaming giant as it tried to become an entertainment company, too. Shortly before the release of the first season of “Arcane,” then-CEO of Riot Games, Nicolo Laurent, pledged that he was going to turn the company into the “entertainment company of the 21st century” (via FastCompany). But despite attempts at expanding into movies and TV, only “Arcane” has come out of that attempt, and as Variety’s report notes, there isn’t really anything else close to actually getting made. “While various writers have come and gone, not a single script ordered got anywhere near a greenlight for so much as a pilot or was even far enough along to have any directors or stars attached,” the report states.

What’s worse, by 2023, Laurent left the company. According to Variety, in his absence, the entertainment division of Riot Games was essentially disbanded.

As for “Arcane,” it may surprise you (not really) to know that the exorbitant budget will not translate into big profits (or any profits at all). Riot gets $3 million per episode in licensing fees from Netflix (including $3 million per episode in China from Tencent), but even with skin sales and merchandise (which weren’t available when season 1 came out) that may not be enough to break even.

The second and final season of “Arcane” releases its first three episodes on Netflix November 9, 2024, followed by another three episodes on November 16 and the final three episodes on November 23.