HBO Execs Considering Game of Thrones “Brand Extension”

[Dejection]

Honestly after their atrocity of an 'adaptation' which pretty much scarred me for life I don't think I'd survive watching a Robert's Rebellion made by these unskilled hacks.

[Sigella]

On 2017-06-01 at 8:20 PM, Dejection said:

Honestly after their atrocity of an 'adaptation' which pretty much scarred me for life I don't think I'd survive watching a Robert's Rebellion made by these unskilled hacks.

RR isnt on the table either according to not a blog.

[SerHaHa]

I'm still hoping for an adult oriented animated ASOAIF series.  So many great voice actors out there, and animation fixes a lot of the CGI costs for dragons, wolves, and other things in the GoT universe.  Also, numbers of troops on the battlefield, while this has improved slightly in recent seasons, it's still a far cry for the battles GRRM describes in his books, the Blackwater Bay battle especially, which looked like about 100 Lannister/KL soldiers vs about 300 Stannis troops.  With an animated series, you could put 10s of thousands of troops, cavalry, etc on screen at at time.  Also, characters like the Mountain could be made to be actually nearly 8 feet tall and 500lbs of walking muscle, instead of a 6"7 guy who weighs about 300 lbs.  Things like that.

Of course I want to see live action series first, but I do feel that a secondary or tertiary series would be great as an animated project.  Robert's Rebellion or TPAQ, any of the stories that require massive battles and such would work well IMO.

[Raeslewolhn]

On 3/11/2017 at 1:55 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?

I really like these ideas. Way back, answering world building questions with all the fantasygasms and drama ppl like

[Raeslewolhn]

On 3/20/2017 at 8:07 PM, lancerman said:

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. 

I agree. Not my fav but I think a normal prequel move. It's a safer bet marketing wise. However, HBO might break the mold, they like to do that. Still, it makes the most sense. 

 

Edit. I take that back, I just read this EW article (GRRM says no RR). I'm not surprised he said no D&E either. 

[TyrionFan82]

It'd be cool to see Rise of the Targareyns, but who knows really. The past 2 seasons, while being good, are obviously (as of now) physically impossible. I wouldn't want it messed up.

[Crazydog7]

Problem is we are really limited by the medium here.  Even if we got a chance to see the really cool stuff Doom of Valeria or the Long Knight it isn’t going to happen.  They have a formula and it works so it will be something more palatable Roberts Rebellion or the short stories.  If we really get lucky maybe we will see the Dance of Dragons (The Targarian Civil War) on the screen. 

[TyrionFan82]

4 hours ago, Crazydog7 said:

Problem is we are really limited by the medium here.  Even if we got a chance to see the really cool stuff Doom of Valeria or the Long Knight it isn’t going to happen.  They have a formula and it works so it will be something more palatable Roberts Rebellion or the short stories.  If we really get lucky maybe we will see the Dance of Dragons (The Targarian Civil War) on the screen. 

 

Good point. They've mentioned before they have all these sets, a lot granted, but they only have so much to deal w/ like RR, DOV, etc.

[FrayedKnotArts]

Sorry, but ths is like the buyers on HGTV bitching about the colour of the walls or the fact there is carpet vs. hardwood in the bedroom.  Bleedin' wankers, they.

I'll be immensely grateful for HBO and the producers  to continue the bloody series just as it is for another five or six years.   All it would take is a severe and stringent study of Barbara Tuchman and the other Medieval scholars of the era to come up with subplots... And then a bit of inspired supposition as to Dragons (Oi.  Don't these things have sex?   More Dragon eggs?  Another trip to the sauna for Danyerys?), Greyscale, Dothraki, Whties and the like.

It seems a bit of a no-brainer for HBO to fund this (or do a "crowwd-funder") for a couple more years. 

MiGod, I'd shoot if I could get an audience like that  (Hell, even 1/100th of that) for my knotwork!

[Spring Bass]

The First Blackfyre Rebellion would make a good series. It could be stretched a bit, there's a lot of KL politicking going on, only one really expensive big battle at Redgrass Field, and mostly skirmishing and the like for other battles. That makes it very good for HBO, especially if they're not keen on spending current levels of Game of Thrones production money on a sequel series.

If they decide they have to have dragons somewhere, they could always do flashbacks.

[plectrum]

I'll say it: I would totally watch a series about the Blackfyre rebellion. I think they run less of a risk of inadvertently screwing up the timeline or details of GoT itself if they stay away from Robert's Rebellion, and I'd love to see Selmy as a young swordsman.

[Olligarchy]

I'd hope they'll go smaller scale for the spin-off. Maybe something ala 'a tale of two cities' or a conflict between 'Starks and Lannisters' except on a local scale rather than continent wide? I found the later seasons a real chore due to everyone needing teleporters to travel the extreme distances which in previous seasons took entire seasons to travel in a matter of episodes or minutes.

[LindaElane]

There are hundreds, in fact, thousands of year of history before the era in which GOT is set.  An entirely new set of characters (possibly some of the same families but not in an era where we know the immediate fate of the family) would be appealing.  The problem:  there is not anyone who can invent worlds like GRRM, and this is almost a "new world" if all of the characters are new.There is also almost no one who can invent characters like GRRM but of course, those who only watch the TV show don't get the depth of characterization the readers do, so new characters might work. ( Assumption:  GRRM is not going to write much in the future and so he won't do much with this project other than bless it with his required approval and some consulting, with minimal writing if at all.)

[The Prince of Newcastle]

On 16/06/2017 at 3:15 AM, SerHaHa said:

I'm still hoping for an adult oriented animated ASOAIF series.  So many great voice actors out there, and animation fixes a lot of the CGI costs for dragons, wolves, and other things in the GoT universe.  Also, numbers of troops on the battlefield, while this has improved slightly in recent seasons, it's still a far cry for the battles GRRM describes in his books, the Blackwater Bay battle especially, which looked like about 100 Lannister/KL soldiers vs about 300 Stannis troops.  With an animated series, you could put 10s of thousands of troops, cavalry, etc on screen at at time.  Also, characters like the Mountain could be made to be actually nearly 8 feet tall and 500lbs of walking muscle, instead of a 6"7 guy who weighs about 300 lbs.  Things like that.

Of course I want to see live action series first, but I do feel that a secondary or tertiary series would be great as an animated project.  Robert's Rebellion or TPAQ, any of the stories that require massive battles and such would work well IMO.

Thor is 6'9 and weighs 400lbs to be fair. 

He is actually much bigger built than the mountain is described if I remember correclty. The hight to weight ratio of real life Thor is bigger than The Mountain that rides, who would need to weigh an extra 200lbs to look as big at 8 foot tall.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

I cant see any adaptations being in anyway watchable.

They will follow the formula they have, which is not a good one IMO. Look at the money they were making when they were making a nuanced, grounded drama (Season 1, 2 and 3)... Now look at the money they are making now, when the show is a fan pleasing pile of absolute wank. 

 

[SerHaHa]

Quote

He is actually much bigger built than the mountain is described if I remember correclty.

You would be remembering incorrectly.  As per GRRM's description many times throughout his books, the Mountain is 8' tall, or extremely close to it, and over 30 stone, which is 420+lbs.  As I said, the actor they have playing him is much smaller, and shorter, as finding such an actor, that has the combination of height, and weight - and that weight being "mostly all muscle" again as per the author's description, doesn't  really exist. 

He wields a 6 foot two handed great sword with one hand easily in the books.  Go find a 6" great sword and try that yourself, it gives a great idea of the height, size, and power of the character alone.

[Ice C]

Basically, they are turning it into Star Trek. And with every new series, less people care...

It doesn't really make sense, the reason given for shortening the last seasons was that the producers wished to do something else for a change - now they're investing money and manpower in spinoffs instead of the original series. It's even moronic from a marketing perspective: Continuing the original series over ten seasons with ten hour-long episodes each would have been cheaper than developing all those new projects from scratch. And they would have catered to the large existing fan(/customer) base, whereas, most probably, no spinoff will ever reach comparable success.

...Those sequel plans could be interesting, though... just imagine, the others win the game,... "soon on HBO: Game of Bones, starring Norman Reedus"!

 

[SecretWeapon]

I still think it's gonna be about Tywin. 

[Zorral]

http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/hbo-exec-network-budget-raped-by-big-little-lies-got.html

Quote

One HBO executive is getting candid about the hits the network’s budget is set to take in the coming year. Speaking on a panel in Jerusalem, HBO drama chief Francesca Orsi said that “from a budget standpoint going into season two of Big Little Lies without any options in place we’ve been … um … short of raped.” Since HBO didn’t plan for a second season, reports have said that stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman were able to negotiate significant raises based on competing salaries at rival networks (particularly Witherspoon’s big paychecks at Apple), as have the rest of the women in the cast. HBO programming president Casey Bloys added, “As a show goes on they get more expensive and as shows get more ambitious they will get more expensive. More money doesn’t always equal better but in some cases the scope of ideas do require it.”

The execs also noted that HBO is facing a budget “conundrum” with Game of Thrones, if it decides to green-light any of the five planned spinoffs. “If we do take off on one of these Game of Thrones spinoffs, where do we start? We can’t obviously start with the budget of season eight but would it be a Game of Thrones season three budget?” Orsi said. Still, Bloys noted that it would be “corporate malfeasance” not to extend the franchise. Heading into the original series’ final half (which has reportedly ballooned to over $15 million per episode), both execs say to prepare yourselves for plenty of bloodshed. Per Deadline, Orsi and Bloys said they attended the “sweat-drenched” table read in Northern Ireland for the final episodes, and vaguely teased that “many” of the characters will die.