‘Slow Horses’ is back for a fifth season
Apple TV
Sustained success is the holy grail for streaming shows. Maintaining interest becomes increasingly challenging with each season as some viewers tire of the subject whilst others object to changes designed to attract new audiences. One studio seems to have found the magic formula.
Next week the fifth season of British spy thriller Slow Horses debuts on Apple TV+ and has big boots to fill. The show about failed MI5 agents has an all-star cast led by Kristin Scott Thomas, Gary Oldman, Jonathan Pryce and Hugo Weaving. Its title is a play on the show’s fictional central London location of Slough House, a dumping ground for espionage rejects who are forced to endure a life of drudgery but end up getting drawn into crucial cases.
When the first season debuted in 2022 it became an overnight success with critics and audiences alike. The former rated it 95% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with the latter giving it 88%. Both praised the show for being the antithesis of James Bond with a distinct lack of glitz, glamour and refinement. Testimony to this, Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus says that “Slow Horses refreshes the espionage genre by letting its band of snoops be bumbling, with Gary Oldman giving a masterclass in frumpy authority.”
The format keeps audiences guessing and combines it with the tension common to spy stories. It set the scene for a series of shows and there was no shortage of source material as Slow Horses is based on a series of 14 books written by British author Mick Herron.
Against the odds interest didn’t wane and critics gave season two a perfect score of 100% when it debuted in December 2022. By then, Apple knew it had a hot property on its hands and renewed it for two more seasons. The fourth repeated the trick with another 100% critics score making a fifth season inevitable.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, the latest season sticks to its guns and it hasn’t gone unnoticed with critics. “If Slow Horses Season 5 proves anything, it’s that even an installment of this show that favors a back-to-basics approach is still definitely worth tuning in for,” said Collider. The Telegraph added that “Slow Horses is unusual: a long-running show that hasn’t had a drop-off in quality. There is a supreme sense of confidence about the way it is put together.” Nevertheless, some observers thought that cracks are starting to appear in it.
“The Slough House screw-ups continue to entertain, even though this particular story’s mix of intensity and comedy doesn’t always gel,” said Empire in its review. It hasn’t deterred Apple as a sixth and seventh season are on the way. There is a lot on the line.
No expense is spared on Slow Horses, from its A List cast to its title track which is performed by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, who wrote the song for the show with composer Daniel Pemberton. It all comes at quite a cost.
‘Slow Horses’ has an A-list cast including Gary Oldman
Apple TV
The cost of making streaming shows made in the United States is usually a closely-guarded secret as studios typically combine them in their overall expenses and don’t itemize how much was spent on each one. It is a different story for production companies based in the United Kingdom, like the one behind the every season of Slow Horses.
That is because U.K. production companies have to file publicly-available financial statements showing everything from the headcount and salaries to the total cost. There is good reason why studios are prepared to put up with this level of transparency.
U.K. production companies benefit from the government’s Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) which gives them a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.
In order to qualify for the reimbursement, at least 10% of the core costs of the production need to relate to activities in the U.K. and each season of Slow Horses passed with flying colors as it was filmed on location across London at historic sites such as Regent’s Park and Greenwich’s Old Naval College.
U.K. production companies usually have code names so that they don’t raise attention with fans when filing for permits to shoot on location. The one behind Slow Horses is called Jackson River Films and its latest financial statements reveal that it spent $99.3 million (£78.5 million) in the year to June, 30 2024 when all of the pre-production for season five was done along with almost all of the filming as it wrapped a month after the accounting date. Post-production of season four was also included in this tally but very little of its filming as this finished in July 2023.
The financial statements reveal that “the estimated total cost of the programme was in excess of the budgeted costs” though it got a helping hand in the form of an $14.4 million (£11.4 million) reimbursement bringing net spending down to $84.9 million. One of its biggest costs was staffing which came to a total of $12.1 million (£9.6 million). Its production team peaked at a monthly average of 217 people without even counting freelancers, contractors and temporary workers as they aren’t listed as employees on the books of U.K. companies even though they often represent the majority of the crew.
Since Jackson River Films was incorporated in 2019 to work on the first season of the show, it has spent a staggering $354.2 million (£276.7 million) according to the company’s earnings releases. They also show that it has banked a total credit of $64.4 million (£50.4 million) bringing the net spending down to $289.8 million.
The company is ultimately owned by French media conglomerate Mediawan but its funding comes from Apple as it distributes Slow Horses. This is explained in the financial statements which show that in return for the funding, “Apple Video Programming LLC holds a fixed and floating charge over the company which entitles it to the rights, title and interest in the entire copyright and all other rights in relation to the production.” Given the rave reviews it has received it is money well spent.
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