MrBeast has revealed the incredible amount he lost making his Beast Games show on Amazon a reality, but the YouTuber has no regrets.
Last December, Amazon launched Beast Games, a 10-episode Amazon series where contestants competed for $10M along with $20M in other prizes.
The rewards were hardly the only expense. Beast Games itself was a massive project that required a whole city to be built, pushing the budget over $100M.
Despite Amazon’s involvement, Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson ended up digging into his own pockets to make the show a reality and it cost him a significant amount.
Mr Beast admits Beast Games “wasn’t a good financial decision”
Speaking with Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO show, MrBeast revealed he “lost a ton of money filming the show.”
“We spent way too much money on it,” Donaldson said. “I lost tens of millions of dollars on that show. I’m an idiot.”
According to the most-subscribed YouTuber, the first episode alone cost $15M, because it required building 1,000 10ft towers, which then had to be safety tested to drop people when they were eliminated.
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“Then episode two we have the city which was a $14M set,” he explained. “ Just between the [money] we gave away plus those two sets, I mean already right there you’re probably you’re at over $50 million.”
While MrBeast said he was advised not to reveal how much the entire show cost, the fact he spent $50M in just two episodes says a lot about the project’s wild budget.
“It was not a good financial decision to make Beast Games. I lost money I would have more money if I didn’t film it,” the 26-year-old confessed.
MrBeast explains why he had to make Beast Games a success
When pressed on if he has any regrets, Donaldson made it clear he has none.
“For me I was it was about making season one as good as possible. I can’t let the YouTube Community down because creators don’t have a good rep when it comes to doing stuff on streaming platforms.”
According to the YouTube star, if he failed, no streaming platform would ever take creators seriously again, so his goal was to make sure Beast Games was a success no matter what.
MrBeast claimed that streaming platforms are reaching out to more creators now even “begging” to meet with them, and at least two have signed deals.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to flow into creators’ pockets just because of Beast Games,” he said.
The show has been a big hit for Amazon too, with Donaldson revealing over 700,000 new unique viewers are watching it every single day – something he says will shatter records if they can maintain those numbers.