Amazon CEO demands budgetary report as ‘Citadel’ underperforms

Headlined by Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden, Citadel was one of the most expensive series ever produced by Amazon Prime Video.

The show had been in the news ever since Chopra was signed on to play the female lead. The show was launched with much fanfare on April 28, 2023. However, much to the disappointment of the creators, it opened to poor response from the audience.

Now, reports are coming in that the CEO of Amazon.com Inc, Andy Jassy has asked for a detailed budget report analysis for Amazon’s big shows that underperformed in the last nine months, including Priyanka Chopra’s spy thriller series Citadel.

Bloomberg reports that Andy has questioned the cost of certain shows, including Citadel. Reportedly, the series has a cost of production of over £200 million.

This comes as Amazon prepares to lay off tens of thousands of employees and jettison projects no longer deemed necessary.

Recent months have seen Amazon spend $100 million on shows like Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers, and The Peripheral. However, none of these shows managed to make it onto the list of the top 10 most-watched shows in the US, as reported by Nielsen.

The first season of Citadel was intended to have a budget of over £15 million per episode and run for eight episodes but the budget ballooned, partly due to the pandemic. However, only six episodes were aired. To mitigate some of the production challenges faced in the first season, Joe Russo has been appointed as the director for each episode of the show's second season.

Meanwhile, news has it that Priyanka Chopra has decided to walk out of her much-talked-about Bollywood comeback film Zee Le Zara owing to date issues. An official announcement is awaited though.

Stay tuned to this space for more updates and reveals.