Citadel: Russo Brothers spy series for Amazon becoming one of the most expensive of all-time

Thanks to the incredible box-office success of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Joe and Anthony Russo have earned a lot of leeway when it comes to budgets. Studios are willing to throw a lot of money at the duo who directed one of the highest-grossing movies of all-time, but the budget of one of their upcoming projects seems to be spiralling out of control. The Russo Brothers are behind Citadel, a spy thriller series for Amazon that’s meant to be one of their flagship shows. However, THR has reported that struggles behind-the-scenes have led to half of the creative team exiting the series, prompting a bunch of reshoots which has pushed the budget to over $200 million.

Citadel is meant to be an “Avengers-style spy show” as it deals with spies from all over the world coming together for the ultimate mission. The series also has franchise-potential built right in as each of the spies could be featured in their own movies in their home countries. Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec scripted the seven-episode series which stars Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Production took up the majority of 2021, but sources told THR that Amazon had some reservations when they finally saw the footage. As The Russo Brothers were focusing on The Gray Man while Citadel was shooting, they weren’t as involved as they might have been. Amazon brought the Russos in to try and save Citadel, and two cuts of the series emerged, one from the Russos and the other from Appelbaum and Nemec.

It seems that Amazon decided to go with the Russo Brothers and Appelbaum was let go from the project in December. His exit prompted director Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) to leave as well as several others. A source connected to Citadel told THR, “What should have happened was Joe turning to Josh and saying, ‘Let’s get together and fix this’ instead of going solo. That’s not what partners are supposed to do.” David Weil (Hunters) was brought in to rewrite the series with cinematographer Thomas Sigel (Drive) helming the reshoots. At the end of the day, the creative differences and lengthy reshoots pushed the cost of Citadel into the $250 million range. The series doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it’s now in post-production. Time will tell if all that money will be worth it.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which has Citadel beat as the most expensive TV series of all-time, debuts on Prime Video tomorrow.