Leinwandliebe Film Talk

The show is meant to serve as the mothership for several planned spin-offs based in local countries and performed in local languages: “Citadel” series set in Italy and India are already underway, with another Mexico-based show also in the works. It’s a gigantic and expensive bet on an original concept that had remained, up until this month, shrouded in mystery. As Variety previously reported, “Citadel” boasts a $185 million budget.

As with the underwhelming “Rings of Power,” that cart-before-the-horse approach can’t help showing in the final product. Also evident is a reportedly chaotic production that included extensive reshoots, a showrunner switch and a shortened episode order. There are traces of that turmoil in the credits; the pilot’s teleplay is attributed to no fewer than five screenwriters. But even if you aren’t the type to close-read an IMDb page, the origins of “Citadel” are obvious enough in the execution: a choppy, generic blockbuster-by-numbers with a nine-figure budget you’d never detect from the chintzy CGI.