10 TV Shows With Massive Budgets That Failed
2. Terra Nova
Fox Network signed Steven Spielberg to executive produce this sci-fi epic that includes dinosaurs.
It is probably slightly unfair to call Terra Nova a flop because it never received embarrassing reviews or had laughable viewership like some of the other entries on this list. In fact, the series premiere was watched by 9.5 million people and was generally liked by critics. But as the season went on, the figures took a bit of a dip, and the reviews regressed to average at best.
In most cases, this could have been attributed to a new show finding its feet. Riding it out and putting some trust in it would seem like a reasonable course of action, but the problem was that Terra Nova was so expensive to make that it simply didn't have that luxury.
It required over 250 sets, a lot of CGI, and some expensive people to operate it all. The pilot alone ended up costing around $14 million, with each subsequent episode having a budget of $4 million. That would be a lot even for a streaming subscription or a premium cable network, so Fox were quick to cut all ties with it and get out with "only" about $100 million spent.