Long before the success of Netflix’s League of Legends TV series Arcane, Riot Games hired Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo to develop a League of Legends movie, according to a new report.
Variety broke the news, but didn’t have much information on what the film project was going to be. The report said Riot “reconsidered the creative approach” it asked of the Russo brothers, and then things fell apart. Variety said Riot had a “badly negotiated” deal with the brothers, and ended up paying them $5 million to walk away due to a clause in the contract.
The Russo brothers’ company, AGBO, along with Riot, declined to confirm the nature or terms of the deal when approached by Variety.
The report went into detail on the efforts that Riot has gone to in its ambition to create a multimedia universe out of League of Legends. So far, this has amounted to only the TV series Arcane, which Variety said cost $250 million to produce and promote for its 18 episodes (nine each for seasons 1 and 2). The site said this makes Arcane the most expensive animated series in television history. Before this, Riot’s former CEO said Season 1 took six years to make.
Riot co-founder Marc Merrill confirmed to Variety that the company has “recalibrated” its approach to multimedia efforts, but remains committed all the same.
“Our ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed,” Merrill said. “We were never intending to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines. What did change as we learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realized that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals and teams with that in mind.”
Arcane Season 2 debuts November 9 on Netflix.
As for the Russo brothers, they are coming back to the MCU and will direct Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
