Sony Pictures Television/PlayStation
Susan Heyward and Sharlto Copley star in "Powers."
Based on the graphic novel of the same name, "Powers" will follow Detective Christian Walker (Sharlto Copley), a former superhero investigating cases in a world where heroes and villains run amok.
The series comes as Sony looks to tap into its world of gamers to test the viability of an original show.
Business Insider spoke with Sony PlayStation's vice president of marketing John Koller who tells us they went all in on the budget for the series.
"We wanted to provide the highest-level of production possible," says Koller. "We went to 'House of Cards' level, 'Breaking Bad' level, I guess 'Orange is the New Black' - those per episode levels is what we're at for 'Powers.'"
Here are the estimated budgets for those three series:
"House of Cards": reportedly started at $4.5 million/episode and ended up higher than that
"Breaking Bad": Variety reported the AMC hit cost $3 million/episode
"Orange is the New Black": estimates put the budget at under $4 million/episode
According to CAA agent Peter Micilli, Netflix's cheapest series costs $3.8 million an episode to make, according to his estimates.
That likely places "Powers" budget per episode between $3 million and $4 million an episode.
Season one of the series will include 10 episodes, which would put the season's production budget between $30 million and $40 million.
"We wanted to go to those levels," Koller explained. "It's critically important, particularly for the theme that we're going for with superheroes. It's challenging to go below that number on a VFX [visual effects] basis and other things coming in less expensively."
"Every effort's being put to the highest quality here," he added.
"Powers" will be released on PlayStation network in the US Tuesday, March 10.
The first episode will be available free for everyone, and will also stream on YouTube.