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HBO Execs Considering Game of Thrones “Brand Extension”


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I'm feeling Aegon's conquest, Maegor the Cruel, or the Dance of the Dragons. 

I think the dragons could be more accessible because there wouldn't be a need for certain other things, like White walker armies mainly. They could divert resources. 

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I think starting with the Conquest could work well. I don't think the CGI would have to be too crazy, as you'd only need to heavily feature the dragons in a few key scenes; Field of Fire, HH, the Eyrie, for example. 2-3 seasons of the Conquest and Aegon + Visenya + Rhaenys ruling. Then you could have Aegon die, and watch Maegor + old Visenya war with the Faith. Blackfyre, Dark Sister. I'd love to see it.

The biggest issue I see with this type of series is that it would be extremely Targaryen centric. It would essentially be Game of Thrones: Fire and Blood. As we are all aware, one of the most appealing aspects of this series is that you have your choice of protagonists. Think the Targs are inbred, entitled assholes—fine. House Stark to the rescue! Unless you're bored by those beleaguered orphans. In that case, House Lannister has your back. Unless you, like show!Renly, think they're the most pompous, ponderous cunts the gods ever... something, something. Think all three of those houses are a bunch of pussies, Ours is the Fury! And if none of them are rapey enough for you, there's always the Greyjoys.

I think if they could swing the budget, the Dance would work the best, as it includes other houses in a more substantial way. Maybe they need to wait a few years for the technology to help lower the cost of the CGI. Then we can watch the Targaryens fight fire with fire.

Would also love some D&E though. Aerion Brightflame, yo. :)

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Why not do the blackfyre rebellions? The first rebellion would make for a great couple of seasons. Although it wouldn't be as long as ASOIAF but maybe they could then transition to the later rebellions. That being said they would probably rename Daenerys to something else since show watchers would get confused.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My suggestion is probably not happening, it breaks too many television guidelines. But how about a BBC-style documentary series, with each episode focusing on a different historical event from World of Ice and Fire? Several episodes on the Valyrian Freehold's conquest of Old Ghis, one or more episodes on the migration of the Rhoynish refugees, perhaps an episode on Bran the Builder, and so on. There must be enough inspiration in the written material for many seasons of episodes.

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4 hours ago, Pocketsaviour said:

 But then I'd want Rory McCann to play Dunk...

Not nearly hot enough. Not nearly. And way too old. Plus if they did that they'd probably make Duncan more like the Hound, which would be a crime beyond imagination.

Besides I'm not the biggest fan of recycling actors.

I mean while where at it why not cast Kathy Bates as Rohanne Webbers?

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Reported that GRRM has stated that the GoT related thing he's working on with HBO is NOT either a Dunk/Egg or 9PK series, sooooo...I wonder what it'll be?  Aegon's original conquest maybe, or perhaps Bob's Bellion now?  Original Dance?

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It's the most boring option, but a Robert's Rebellion makes the most sense for this sort of a project. It is a well layered story in and of itself. AND it features enough ties to the original series to give it a hook for most of the current audience. A series where a young Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon team up to defeat the Mad King. Where Lyanna is kidnapped. Where Jamie becomes a KG. Where Tywin takes over his father's seat and watches his relationship with Aerys detoriate. Where Cat has her bethrothed taken from her and is forced to settle for Ned. Where Rheagar accidentally starts a war that will destroy his house.

You could very easily get a few seasons out of that. 

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They'll be looking for a lot more than a few seasons IMO.

Also, the negatives to the Rebellion is having to get all new cast just after the current series end, replacing known and adored characters with mostly new people (due to age, example, look how much NCW playing Jaime has aged since 2010 when they filmed the first episodes/reshoots).  There is also little room for "magic", and no dragons, a creature/concept sort of vital to the TV end of GOT, again, just IMO.

That's why I'd guess it will be either the conquest, or perhaps the Dance. 

I do agree though that the rebellion would provide some great potential, telling that story on screen would be something I'd love to see.  Again though, I think they would reject it just based on having to change out so many known, and most importantly recently known, actors for almost all of the characters.  The show got away with it with Ned and some others being recast younger in the flashbacks, due to it being closer to a decade than not since he was seen on screen in that role.  It wouldn't work with others like Jaime, Cercei, Tyrion (obviously), Baelish, etc...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Any chance they could do it True Detective style? Where each season is complete and done. You could do a Rebellion season, Dunk and Egg, She wolves, hell you could do Roberts rebellion season then follow up with a shorter season of the Greyjoy rebellion etc.  They could tell each one and not have to worry about continuing actors pay raises to keep them. There are more than enough stories to milk 7-10 seasons out like that.

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GRRM stated back in 2014 that he was talking with "someone" about an adaptation of the Dunk and Egg Novellas.  But we haven't heard anything since.  The problem with D&E is that you would quickly run into the current problem that we have with GoT, running out of material and having to improvise the rest of the story.  GRRM has said that he wants to write more about these two but as we have seen with the divergence of the GoT series from the books that quickly becomes a real problem. 

 

But all of the scenarios have problems.  Robert's Rebellion, I don't know, maybe two or three seasons?  Anything else, instead of that including D&E and you have to introduce a whole new cast of characters and that can be problematic.  Not everyone, in fact probably not even the greater part of GoT fans are desiccated enough that they know anything about the Greyjoy's Rebellion or the Blackfyre stuff or the coming of the Andals or Bran the Builder.  The one thing that we do know is that GRRM isn't all that interested in writing it.  And HBO has said that to do another thing in the GoT universe (and GRRM has made it plain that HBO is his preferred partner) they have to have the right property and the right writers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not sure any of the other stories have more than 1-2 seasons in them.

Personally. I'd like to see something like a Chronicles of Westeros, which has a different focus and story each season or two. It should start with Aegons conquest and end with Roberts Rebellion, with many stories in between.

Season 1: Aegons Conquest

We see how Westeros was like before the conquest and how it was run under the old kings (Harrren the black, TorhenStark, etc). We see Aegons landing at dragonstone and all the politics involved in his conquest (as well as the battles, field of fire, etc, obviously). We'd get an insight into the character of Aegon (and Visenya and Rhaenys) and his interactions and motivations for his conquest.

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On 11.3.2017 at 7:55 PM, House Mosse said:

Why not go way back - the coming of the Andals to Westeros, or even to the age of heroes, Bran the Builder etc.? These are legend or even myth at the time of the War of the Five Kings, so why not find out what really happened?

This could be badass, and we would be able to sethe giants and cotf in their prime. It could require a lot of cgi though, and maybe they would think it to expensive. 

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On 4/5/2017 at 2:53 PM, dbunting said:

Any chance they could do it True Detective style? Where each season is complete and done. You could do a Rebellion season, Dunk and Egg, She wolves, hell you could do Roberts rebellion season then follow up with a shorter season of the Greyjoy rebellion etc.  They could tell each one and not have to worry about continuing actors pay raises to keep them. There are more than enough stories to milk 7-10 seasons out like that.

I think this is the best idea yet. This format works well enough for American Horror Story, which works as a series of self-contained seasons with different settings, different characters, and different plots. Ryan Murphy is also adopting this format for the new series Feud, where each season will cover a single feud.

Robert's Rebellion, which would be the closest spinoff to GOT other than a sequel (many of the same characters, like Ned, Tywin, etc.), could be the first season, to draw viewers in, and then they could go from there.

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Well, now we know that it's five, not four and that it won't be Robert's Rebellion or Dunc and Egg or a sequel.  Personally this leaves me cold.  I've always found the early "history" of Westeros to be pretty silly.  And some of this will be a hard sell to regular fans, True, you'll have Starks and Targs and Lannisters but they won't be the ones that the audience is familiar with.  That's going to be very hard for an audience to accept, having to get to know and root for all new characters. I know that HBO will go for quality people but without a strong thread to bring the audience together you will in many ways be starting from scratch.  With the utter failure of the latest King Arthur movie I guess that we'll never see it but I would rather that HO tackled something new, like and adaptation of Mary Stewart's "Merlin" series of books rather than pursuing this. 

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Perhaps the arrival of the Andals in Rhaesh Andahli.  The struggle and politics between the Andals, the First Men, and the Children of the Forest would make for good television.  Most of the content would likely be new, providing only tastes of what we now know as the history of Westeros.  It could answer questions we haven't yet asked...see things that would make us better understand the stories we know (or think we know).  

Seems like something GRRM would go for.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Read on GRRM's blog that HBO are considering four different themes and that D&E isnt one of them.

I'm guessing 3 of those are: Aegons conquest, Dance of Dragons and the Blackfyre-rebellions 

But I can't even guess what the fourth angle would be. (gods have mercy don't let it be the Andal invasion)

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