The first look at the Russo brothers’ $185 million TV series may leave you wondering where all the money went

There’s an element of “old man yelling at cloud” to the sentiment that modern-day movies and TV shows are getting way too expensive for their own good, but Prime Video splurging an eye-watering $185 million on the episodic blockbuster Citadel is destined to raise more than a couple of eyebrows.

The globetrotting espionage series hails from Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame, and The Gray Man directors Joe and Anthony Russo, with Hunters‘ David Weil behind the camera. Roping in a cavalcade of recognizable names to tell a tale of international intrigue, Citadel is undoubtedly Amazon’s most ambitious episodic offering yet that isn’t called The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Why, you may ask? Because it’s already been designed as a multi-national franchise, with multiple spinoffs and offshoots in the works that will all connect into one grand storytelling tapestry. In fact, cameras are already rolling on the Italian and Indian versions, so the streaming service needs its flagship to land with a bang.

As for the footage in the first trailer, well, it doesn’t really convey the mammoth sums of money funneled into Citadel. Sure, there are some decent enough visual effects, a snippet of action-based badassery, and some sweeping landscapes, you wouldn’t watch the promo and think to yourself that the show cost roughly the same as a Marvel Cinematic Universe epic.

Either way, Citadel drops next month, so we’ll be very interested to see if the enormous investment proves to be worth it in the end, or the would-be mythology ends up crumbling into dust like the olden structures with which it shares a title.