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HBO confirms on working on four potential spinoffs of GOT


Dragonsbone

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1 hour ago, Newstar said:

That is a matter of opinion.

I for one thought the DOTD was a big yawn. 

Yes. It sounds like the prequels are predicated on the assumption that fans will find anything set in Westeros--or even beyond Westeros--just as fascinating as they found GOT, when it has none of GOT's characters, nothing to do with GOT's plots, and maybe not even any dragons. That seems like a huge assumption to me.

I agree, I'm absolutely not interested in that story. 

Yeah, I agree. 

24 minutes ago, Duranaparthur said:

Hope fully, the prequel or spinoff that makes it is one that follows the keys to the first Season of GOT's success; strong character work and smart drama. Because it may be accurate to say that the genre and setting may not appeal to mainstream audiences in-and-of-itself, BUT! in the last decade we have seen that a strong series concept and strong writing can make almost any TV series that survives a first season with positive feedback and decent numbers can explode. I mean, period dramas about the Vikings invading England don't really have people clambering for them base don concept alone, but we've got History Channel's Vikings and BBC's The Last Kingdom.

GOT didn't take off because of ice zombies and dragons; it took off because it made the mainstream audience care for characters who you knew would have to deal with ice zombies and dragons. Subplots like Arya's training or Tynion's capture had nothing to do with the fantasy elements, but gave you protagonists you liked facing challenges you wanted to see them resolve. And because they made all the characters fascinating with Dany and Drogo's relationship or the tragicomic dialogue between Cersei and Robert, you even cared about antagonists and side-characters. The one thing you can't afford is to waste good actors and concepts on underwhelming storytelling and writing with characters you either don't worry about, like how King Arthur: Legend of the Sword did, or characters you don't like, similar to how Starz's Camelot did.

Whichever successor series they make needs a main protagonist the audience can both cheer for and worry about, like Ned Stark, and then pump up the ensemble with equally great characters and conflicts. RR has too many known factors and known fates: even Unsullied with short attention spans are going to realize that every Stark between Ned and Winterfell is going to die, that Robert's going to be king, and that the hopeful little swordsman joining the Kingsguard is going to have a nasty secret involving his sister. There's high drama there, but a lot less tension and suspense. On the other hand, if they did something like the Blackfyre Rebellions, the Unsullied don't know anything beyond the Targaryens surviving the war.

You make lots of valid points, but I think they mostly apply to the new series. The world of spinoffs is much more slippery, because there are expectations, there's a point of reference. When I started watching GoT I had nothing to compare it to other than itself. When I watched Hobbit I saw LOTR (or lack thereof) in every single scene and I wasn't impressed. And I can safely say I haven't watched a single tv spinoff of tv series I had previously watched. Even if the series is/was good, I just don't care about that random character's adventures in that random place. And it's going to take some killer cast to get me in front of the on-screen version of a story I'm not interested in. And that's still no guarantee that I'm going to last longer than an episode. 

As for RR vs Blackfyre rebellion, it comes down to characters you know and care about vs full random people you never heard of. Who would pick the latter? 

2 hours ago, Dragonsbone said:

When you talk about television, there are some very important issues that you have to consider. 

1. Ratings are EVERYTHING. Even if a show does not gain big profits at the beginning or in worst case make losses, it does not matter for a certain period as long as the ratings are high. High ratings for a pay tv as HBO mean that you sell more abonements to private households, thus reaching a bigger part of the peer-group. Even if the costs for a series (e.g. Dance of the dragons) are high, it does not matter as long as the ratings are high. Even if they don't make profit with the show, they gain a bigger group of consumers for their other programs. They just substitute their gains to other programs. Some shows are just a cliff-hanger to get people to buy the HBO abonement. 

2. The peer-group: To gain big ratings, it is important to reach a huge part of people, from all across the world. If you produce a big show, it is not enough to reach the hardcore fans, since they will probably watch it anyway. They do not matter in terms of strategic aspects. They are a constant in their planings. Also they are way to small, to be concerned. GoT is not successfull because of people like me. It is successfull because of people like my parents, grandparents, brother, friends and colleagues. They do not read fantasy, they barely watched fantasy before. None of them has ever read ASOIAF. Some of them don't even know who GRRM is. But they have one thing in common: they surpass me by numbers in a huge amount. It is not profitable for HBO to concentrate on me or loose time and affort on me. Point here is: WE (the book readers) DO NOT MATTER.

3. The story must be made for non book readers. It must be a story that reaches the mass. GoT did not reached the mass because of its fantasy elements, but because the drama, characters and politics. Oh and Sex. HBO will use the same formula for the new show. As they always do. Not because they are stupid and uninspired. But because they specifically know very well how television works. Minimize the risk, maximize the ratings. 

Considering the arguements obove, some shows that some book readers wish are just wishes. Dunk and Egg??? If you try to sell this story to producers, and you have not made a name in television, they will call the security and you will be baned for life from the building. Even with the success of GoT, there is no way that this show will reach masses and be successfull. Just imagine the "Everyday Joe" switching to this show and hoping he will get something similar to GoT. This show would not even pass the pilot episode. And please take into consideration that I am not talking about myself and my wishes. I am just trying to explain how the business of television works (trust me, I am speaking out of experience). The only possibility for a Dunk and Egg would be if GRRM would sign a contract where he is the producer and take all the costs and risks and sells it to HBO, while HBO is allowed to put it in their programe at whatever time they want and quit it whenever they want. No sane human in the world would sign such a contract. 

I strongly believe, that HBO right now is overestimating the success of GoT in respect to his successor-show. I do not believe that the spinn-offs will be successfull, whichever spinn-off they choose. The mass has one big flaw: they are fed up pretty fast. 

 

Yes. This. Every word. :commie: 

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3 hours ago, Newstar said:

People gobble up historical dramas despite knowing full well what's going to happen to everyone involved. It's the power of the story that matters, not knowing the ultimate fates of everyone involved.

 

When GOT came out, there weren't many shows like GOT, so GOT could flourish without much competition. However, thanks in no small part to the success of GOT, other shows, such as the shows you have mentioned, have sprung up. Who's going to watch a GOT spinoff when they can get their drama fix from Vikings, Outlander, Poldark, Wolf Hall, Medici, The White Princess, The Last Kingdom, etc. etc.? Any GOT spinoff would be competing against shows like these, and a lot of them are likely better than anything a spinoff writer could come up with in the Westeros universe.

 

Again, I disagree. Strip away the ice zombies, dragons and other magical trappings, and GOT is just your run of the mill medieval story, ultimately no different from other medieval drama offerings. Remember that when it came to drama, Rome had compelling writing, great characters, fascinating political intrigue, high production values, lavish costumes, and excellent acting, but it failed to achieve GOT's success, even if it may have been a better show than GOT all things considered. 

I agree and disagree about Rome. It had compelling writing certainly, a very small number of fascinating characters, some great political intrigue, high production values too; but ultimately the only area I think it was actually better than Game of Thrones was in the writing and maybe costumes.

Several of the acting performances on GoT are better than any on Rome, GoT has higher production values, more fascinating characters (in both quantity and quality) and its political intrigue is at least on par. With better writing, GoT would be a masterpiece.

That said, it's not like the writing on GoT is uniformly bad. There has been many well written episodes and arcs. Unfortunately, there has also been many poorly written episodes and/or character arcs within an episode that let the overall quality of the episodes writing down.

Even minus the ice zombies and dragons, I still think GoT is still well above "your run of the mill medieval story" as you put it.

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I agree with others there is big risk with a prequel series that doesn't directly lead into the time of the main series and it would be very difficult to get it to appeal to a mainstream audience without some effective advertising and creating some kind of meaningful link to the main series and characters.

Without that, you essentially just have a brand new, unfamiliar show with unfamiliar characters that just happens to be set in the same world as GoT..and that's a lot harder to make successful.

I think Aegons conquest is about the only prequel that could potentially become as mainstream as GoT, but that would depend on an effective advertising campaign and a well written story with well acted interesting characters. Even then it would still be difficult to attract new audiences that didn't watch the original Game of Thrones series.

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56 minutes ago, Gaz0680 said:

Even minus the ice zombies and dragons, I still think GoT is still well above "your run of the mill medieval story" as you put it.

Agree to disagree on that. I know mileage varies.

To the mass audience, however, most of whom I don't even think could name anyone outside the top 10 characters, the show is pretty much 1) that emo pretty boy, 2) that hot dragon chick, 3) that psycho little girl, 4) that snarky little dude, and 5) that alcoholic bad bitch, whose names they may not even remember, plus cool shit like dragons and ice zombies. That's the sum total of their viewing experience, and that's what keeps them tuning in week after week, while everything else is just boring white noise that they grudgingly tolerate to get to the good stuff that they actually care about. I watch with a very smart, attentive guy who's a faithful viewer, and even he's constantly asking me who this or that character is, even as of the end of Season 6 where the list of living characters has dwindled and where D&D have simplified the plotline. That's pretty typical, I think.

D&D know their audience, and not surprisingly, they have slowly geared the show away from subtle nuance and intricate plotting and towards eyepopping visual spectacle with lots of dragon/zombie/magical goodness. Also not surprisingly, ratings have only increased. They know what the mass audience wants, and it's not a run of the mill medieval story, since they can get that elsewhere. They want crazy visual spectacle. They want magic. They want dragons.

I know book readers complain that the show has boiled out a lot of the complexity of the books, both plotwise and characterwise, and frankly they're not wrong, but D&D have figured out that that's not what viewers on the whole want from GOT. They want simple storylines they can follow, a manageable number of characters, straightforwardly sympathetic and decent heroes (sorry, Book Tyrion), and, most importantly, lots of visual spectacle like dragons and zombies. Increasingly, D&D seem to be writing for the budget-busting, jawdropping, eyepopping, visually insane set piece(s) of the season, like Hardhome, the WW assault on the cave, the sept explosion and the BOTB, because they know that that is what viewers have come to expect (and they've in fact said as much).

D&D also seem to know that even if audiences did want all that knotty plot and character complexity, they could find it done elsewhere and they could find it done better. Lots of shows, not even necessarily period dramas, revolve around complex intrigue either in politics or in corporate settings (Billions, Scandal, Suits, House of Cards, etc.).

To bring this all back to a spinoff, I think any spinoff that can't offer that kind of whizbang "wow" factor that the mass audience has come to expect from GOT is doomed to fail. I'm guessing that's why HBO passed on Dunk & Egg, assuming that was HBO's idea: not exciting enough. If I had to guess about spinoffs, I'd say HBO is looking for something that can dazzle audiences the way GOT audiences have been dazzled.

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10 minutes ago, Newstar said:

To bring this all back to a spinoff, I think any spinoff that can't offer that kind of whizbang "wow" factor that the mass audience has come to expect from GOT is doomed to fail. I'm guessing that's why HBO passed on Dunk & Egg, assuming that was HBO's idea: not exciting enough. If I had to guess about spinoffs, I'd say HBO is looking for something that can dazzle audiences the way GOT audiences have been dazzled.

I do agree here. Any spinoff would have to have spectacle...and lots of it. Not just through dragons, but also lots of big moments and/or surprises (eg neds death, Red Wedding, Jon's stabbing, shireens burning, Arya killing meryn trant and Walder Frey, Jon/Sansa reunion, Sept explosion, Battle of Blackwater, Battle of the Bastards, Oberyn v Mountain, Hardhome,  etc etc). 

Any GoT spinoff not containing those kinds of elements is doomed to fail. They are what keep mainstream audiences repeatedly coming back for more. GoT wouldn't have half the audience it does if you stripped those shock/awe moments away and just had a typical medieval drama with some humour thrown in.

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2 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

I do agree here. Any spinoff would have to have spectacle...and lots of it. Not just through dragons, but also lots of big moments and/or surprises (eg neds death, Red Wedding, Jon's stabbing, shireens burning, Arya killing meryn trant and Walder Frey, Jon/Sansa reunion, Sept explosion, Battle of Blackwater, Battle of the Bastards, Oberyn v Mountain, Hardhome,  etc etc). 

Any GoT spinoff not containing those kinds of elements is doomed to fail. They are what keep mainstream audiences repeatedly coming back for more. GoT wouldn't have half the audience it does if you stripped those shock/awe moments away and just had a typical medieval drama with some humour thrown in.

I think that's fair. The Walking Dead has employed the same formula--writing towards shocking twists coupled with visually impressive set pieces--to great success with audiences, although that show has its own issues that I won't go into here.

It's probably a good thing that GOT is ending when it is, because D&D feel the need to keep topping themselves with these wild set pieces, and I don't know how much further they can go. Any spinoff would be able to start over at zero, although the pressure to deliver GOT-style plot twists and visual spectacle would still be there.

I think DOTD could certainly deliver on the visual spectacle side of things, what with all the dragon battles and such, but they would need a really, really gifted writer to clean up the characterization and plotting of the novella to make the adaptation palatable to a mass audience, and I don't know that any of the four named writers are up to that task. I don't know how the novella managed to take a Targ on Targ conflict involving multiple dragon battles and make it boring, or how the novella managed to take what should be a wrenching, heartbreaking family conflict and make everyone involve come off as a bunch of unsympathetic assholes who deserved everything that happened to them, but there you have it. 

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8 minutes ago, Newstar said:

I think that's fair. The Walking Dead has employed the same formula--writing towards shocking twists coupled with visually impressive set pieces--to great success with audiences, although that show has its own issues that I won't go into here.

It's probably a good thing that GOT is ending when it is, because D&D feel the need to keep topping themselves with these wild set pieces, and I don't know how much further they can go. Any spinoff would be able to start over at zero, although the pressure to deliver GOT-style plot twists and visual spectacle would still be there.

I think DOTD could certainly deliver on the visual spectacle side of things, what with all the dragon battles and such, but they would need a really, really gifted writer to clean up the characterization and plotting of the novella to make the adaptation palatable to a mass audience, and I don't know that any of the four named writers are up to that task. I don't know how the novella managed to take a Targ on Targ conflict involving multiple dragon battles and make it boring, or how the novella managed to take what should be a wrenching, heartbreaking family conflict and make everyone involve come off as a bunch of unsympathetic assholes who deserved everything that happened to them, but there you have it.

carly wray is certainly up to the task. the writing on mad men and the leftovers is light years above GOT. if D&D could do it, then so could she imo

but seriously you really didn't care for rhaenyra at all lol?

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13 minutes ago, Tifani said:

carly wray is certainly up to the task. the writing on mad men and the leftovers is light years above GOT. if D&D could do it, then so could she imo

but seriously you really didn't care for rhaenyra at all lol?

God, no. She was Lysa with a crown. Look at how she's described on AWOIAF:

 

Quote

She was very proud and stubborn, and there was a certain petulance to her small mouth. She gained a lot of weight after her first three pregnancies, even though she was only 20. Later in life, after six pregnancies, Rhaenyra became a stout woman, with a thick waist and a large bosom.

Though Rhaenyra could be charming, she was quick to anger and never forgot a slight. 

Sound familiar?

Cersei at least has the Lannister trademark bitchy charm. Who wants to read a series with Lysa as a lead character? She was insufferable enough as a secondary character in ASOIAF. 

...There's also all the crazy, horrible shit Rhaenyra did, but honestly I didn't care enough about any of the DOTD characters to get too worked up over all the awful things she did, LOL.

I've always been impressed with Carly Wray. She also has experience writing medieval stories as she wrote for The Bastard Executioner, although I don't know whether that's much of a feather in her cap, since I heard that series was terrible.

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16 minutes ago, Newstar said:

God, no. She was Lysa with a crown. Look at how she's described on AWOIAF:

 

Sound familiar?

Cersei at least has the Lannister trademark bitchy charm. Who wants to read a series with Lysa as a lead character? She was insufferable enough as a secondary character in ASOIAF. 

...There's also all the crazy, horrible shit Rhaenyra did, but honestly I didn't care enough about any of the DOTD characters to get too worked up over all the awful things she did, LOL.

I've always been impressed with Carly Wray. She also has experience writing medieval stories as she wrote for The Bastard Executioner, although I don't know whether that's much of a feather in her cap, since I heard that series was terrible.

ugh this just reminds me of how gross GRRM can be about women's bodies. that comparison about her weight gain with pregnancies and alicent remaining slim and beautiful still makes me cringe. (so glad the show skipped cersei's AFFC weight gain btw)

well i think rhaenyra is more of a mix between cersei and daenerys than lysa but i see your point lol.

yeah i think all the points you're making in this thread are very valid. i just don't think HBO has to go too extreme in an effort to market this spinoff. all they would have to do is show dragons, violence and sex lol. and i think good actors could elevate the material. just imagine someone like eva green as rhaenyra.......HBO in general has been doing a very good job with adapting novels lately. the Big Little Lies miniseries was fantastic. and with something like DOTD, a good writer could really flesh this story out and characters in compelling ways. 

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12 hours ago, Newstar said:

Agree to disagree on that. I know mileage varies.

To the mass audience, however, most of whom I don't even think could name anyone outside the top 10 characters, the show is pretty much 1) that emo pretty boy, 2) that hot dragon chick, 3) that psycho little girl, 4) that snarky little dude, and 5) that alcoholic bad bitch, whose names they may not even remember, plus cool shit like dragons and ice zombies. That's the sum total of their viewing experience, and that's what keeps them tuning in week after week, while everything else is just boring white noise that they grudgingly tolerate to get to the good stuff that they actually care about. I watch with a very smart, attentive guy who's a faithful viewer, and even he's constantly asking me who this or that character is, even as of the end of Season 6 where the list of living characters has dwindled and where D&D have simplified the plotline. That's pretty typical, I think.

D&D know their audience, and not surprisingly, they have slowly geared the show away from subtle nuance and intricate plotting and towards eyepopping visual spectacle with lots of dragon/zombie/magical goodness. Also not surprisingly, ratings have only increased. They know what the mass audience wants, and it's not a run of the mill medieval story, since they can get that elsewhere. They want crazy visual spectacle. They want magic. They want dragons.

I know book readers complain that the show has boiled out a lot of the complexity of the books, both plotwise and characterwise, and frankly they're not wrong, but D&D have figured out that that's not what viewers on the whole want from GOT. They want simple storylines they can follow, a manageable number of characters, straightforwardly sympathetic and decent heroes (sorry, Book Tyrion), and, most importantly, lots of visual spectacle like dragons and zombies. Increasingly, D&D seem to be writing for the budget-busting, jawdropping, eyepopping, visually insane set piece(s) of the season, like Hardhome, the WW assault on the cave, the sept explosion and the BOTB, because they know that that is what viewers have come to expect (and they've in fact said as much).

D&D also seem to know that even if audiences did want all that knotty plot and character complexity, they could find it done elsewhere and they could find it done better. Lots of shows, not even necessarily period dramas, revolve around complex intrigue either in politics or in corporate settings (Billions, Scandal, Suits, House of Cards, etc.).

To bring this all back to a spinoff, I think any spinoff that can't offer that kind of whizbang "wow" factor that the mass audience has come to expect from GOT is doomed to fail. I'm guessing that's why HBO passed on Dunk & Egg, assuming that was HBO's idea: not exciting enough. If I had to guess about spinoffs, I'd say HBO is looking for something that can dazzle audiences the way GOT audiences have been dazzled.

I 100% agree. 

Even though the plot and the characters were vastly simplified it's still damn complicated for television there are still way more than a manageable number of characters and the general audience has zero idea about backstories like RR. They don't care for consistency, they don't care for logic, they don't care for depth or valid characterization, they want sex, blood, CGI and shock value. And d&d did a good job providing that. 

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12 hours ago, Newstar said:

God, no. She was Lysa with a crown. Look at how she's described on AWOIAF:

 

Sound familiar?

Cersei at least has the Lannister trademark bitchy charm. Who wants to read a series with Lysa as a lead character? She was insufferable enough as a secondary character in ASOIAF. 

...There's also all the crazy, horrible shit Rhaenyra did, but honestly I didn't care enough about any of the DOTD characters to get too worked up over all the awful things she did, LOL.

I've always been impressed with Carly Wray. She also has experience writing medieval stories as she wrote for The Bastard Executioner, although I don't know whether that's much of a feather in her cap, since I heard that series was terrible.

Exactly. In the TWOIAF she is a mix of Cercei and Lysa. And please have in mind: she is the main character of the Dance. Television tends to simplifiy and exagerate characters, to make them more rememberable for the mass and more entertaining. So expect 100% this: she is gonna be exactly like Cercei in the show.

The main problem with Dance is the following: 

All the infos we have are from TWOIAF and some very few from ASOIAF in retrospectiv tales. But TWOIAF is not a novel. We do not have dialogues let alone POV's. It is a fake history book. The story is told very fast. A family fights against each other. Nearly all die at the end. That's it. Ok. You might add, that a lot of stories are basically the same. For example Hamlet. That is true, but Hanlet would never work as an ongoing TV show. 

GoT on the other hand, is based on a gigantic novel that consists of (at least) seven books. There are a lot of characters with multidimensional stories thar are deeply conected to each other.

Also the characters of GoT are written and developed over decades, while the characters of Dance have to be developed by HBO. The story in GoT grew out of the characters, while the characters of the spinn-off will have to fit the story. If you look up at the story of dance, you have to admitt that there are barely interesting characters. The ones that are, are quite similar to the characters of GoT. While they work out for a fake history book who just delivers bonus material for the "nerd" in us, they won't work out for a tv show made for millions of people with zero conections to the books. The main viewers will just call Rhaenyra "Cersei vol. 2" since they have no idea who Lysa Tully was. 

If you want to know how these kind of spinn-offs work, just look at the movie "the hobbit". Peter Jackson took one children book, and in the lack of filmable material, he blow the story with fake stories and characters that were not in the books at all (e.g. Legolas). And how was the response to this movie: catastrophic. It actually ruined the franchise. Now imagine, if this was a tv show. How many seasons will it have last? 

So I said it once, and I say it again: this whole spinn-off will flop.

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You guys are kidding yourselves if you don't think DOTD will be the most appealing for those producing AND for investors AND for show only watchers. I doubt they expect it to be as successful as GOT, but it's so popular even a fraction could be enough to expand the brand. 

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52 minutes ago, Leonardo said:

You guys are kidding yourselves if you don't think DOTD will be the most appealing for those producing AND for investors AND for show only watchers. I doubt they expect it to be as successful as GOT, but it's so popular even a fraction could be enough to expand the brand. 

That's not true, since the DOTD would be the priciest spinoff option, and probably by a fair amount.  It would probably have to be as popular as GOT to justify its existence (though I should note that they'd presumably save a huge amount of money on cast salaries by jettisoning Dinklage et al., so it could have an overall budget similar to GOT but shift more of that toward VFX).

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2 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

That's not true, since the DOTD would be the priciest spinoff option, and probably by a fair amount.  It would probably have to be as popular as GOT to justify its existence (though I should note that they'd presumably save a huge amount of money on cast salaries by jettisoning Dinklage et al., so it could have an overall budget similar to GOT but shift more of that toward VFX).

They would save massively on actor salaries. They'd probably cast a bunch of cheap talent to start out with, as they did with GOT, and go from there.

I doubt they'd be throwing a Season 6 GOT-level money at the show to start out, though. GOT had to earn its $100 million/season budget. Season 1 of GOT only had $60 million to film and I don't know where it all went, because frankly a lot of Season 1 looked like Xena Warrior Princess or one of those life of Jesus TV movies that come out every few years in terms of production values. 

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3 hours ago, Dragonsbone said:

Exactly. In the TWOIAF she is a mix of Cercei and Lysa. And please have in mind: she is the main character of the Dance. Television tends to simplifiy and exagerate characters, to make them more rememberable for the mass and more entertaining. So expect 100% this: she is gonna be exactly like Cercei in the show.

The main problem with Dance is the following: 

All the infos we have are from TWOIAF and some very few from ASOIAF in retrospectiv tales. But TWOIAF is not a novel. We do not have dialogues let alone POV's. It is a fake history book. The story is told very fast. A family fights against each other. Nearly all die at the end. That's it. Ok. You might add, that a lot of stories are basically the same. For example Hamlet. That is true, but Hanlet would never work as an ongoing TV show. 

GoT on the other hand, is based on a gigantic novel that consists of (at least) seven books. There are a lot of characters with multidimensional stories thar are deeply conected to each other.

Also the characters of GoT are written and developed over decades, while the characters of Dance have to be developed by HBO. The story in GoT grew out of the characters, while the characters of the spinn-off will have to fit the story. If you look up at the story of dance, you have to admitt that there are barely interesting characters. The ones that are, are quite similar to the characters of GoT. While they work out for a fake history book who just delivers bonus material for the "nerd" in us, they won't work out for a tv show made for millions of people with zero conections to the books. The main viewers will just call Rhaenyra "Cersei vol. 2" since they have no idea who Lysa Tully was. 

If you want to know how these kind of spinn-offs work, just look at the movie "the hobbit". Peter Jackson took one children book, and in the lack of filmable material, he blow the story with fake stories and characters that were not in the books at all (e.g. Legolas). And how was the response to this movie: catastrophic. It actually ruined the franchise. Now imagine, if this was a tv show. How many seasons will it have last? 

So I said it once, and I say it again: this whole spinn-off will flop.

i totally agree with this. and i think they might even want to especially market as rhaenyra as cersei 2.0 as I'm willing to bet a good amount of money that by the time season 8 ends, cersei will be considered a pretty ~iconic~ female villain of TV. they'll want to cash in on that popularity imo. 

whether rhaenyra could ever actually have the same kind of affect and popularity as cersei....i'm not sure of

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3 minutes ago, Newstar said:

They would save massively on actor salaries. They'd probably cast a bunch of cheap talent to start out with, as they did with GOT, and go from there.

I doubt they'd be throwing a Season 6 GOT-level money at the show to start out, though. GOT had to earn its $100 million/season budget. Season 1 of GOT only had $60 million to film and I don't know where it all went, because frankly a lot of Season 1 looked like Xena Warrior Princess or one of those life of Jesus TV movies that come out every few years in terms of production values. 

well I could see DOTD bieng only 7 to 8 episodes unlike 10 episodes that GOT season 1 was so even if they only have $60 million budget, each episode could have more budget than GOT season 1.

they could also save money be reusing sets, costumes and props from GOT I guess? and not having as many main characters as GOT of course

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1 hour ago, Leonardo said:

You guys are kidding yourselves if you don't think DOTD will be the most appealing for those producing AND for investors AND for show only watchers. I doubt they expect it to be as successful as GOT, but it's so popular even a fraction could be enough to expand the brand. 

It may or may not be the most appealing to producers and show watchers. I would certainly argue its appeal to investors as the CGI costs would be sky high. The point is that most spinoffs don't live up to the expectations of fans of the original show  - if they even decide to tune in. And the promise of a similar setting is hardly enough to achieve that. 

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DOTD would only be super expensive if they tried to adapt it faithfully...which, let's be honest, they would never do.  

There is nothing stopping them from capping the number of dragons at 4-5 (removing the whole 'seedling' arc entirely), removing most of the battles, and eliminating several characters.  

The only characters who need dragons imo are Aegon and Aemon for the greens, and Rhaenyra. Daemon and her son (who Aemon kills early on, along with his dragon, dropping it down to 4 total, to start the war) for the blacks.  After that, they can beef up the roles of characters with House names everyone knows:  Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, etc..  

It's got tits, dragons, some of Martin's twists (blood and cheese), and more tits.  Recipe for at least modest success (nothing will match current GOT imo).   They could probably stretch it out to 2-3 seasons.  

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1 hour ago, Ser Wun Wun said:

DOTD would only be super expensive if they tried to adapt it faithfully...which, let's be honest, they would never do.  

There is nothing stopping them from capping the number at dragons at 4-5 (removing the whole 'seedling' arc entirely), removing most of the battles, and eliminating several characters.  

The only characters who need dragons imo, are Aegon and Aemon for the greens, and Rhaenyra. Daemon and her son (who Aemon kills early on, along with his dragon, dropping it down to 4 total, to start the war) for the blacks.  After that, they can beef up the roles of characters with House names everyone knows:  Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, etc..  

It's got tits, dragons, some of Martin's twists (blood and cheese), and more tits.  Recipe for at least modest success (nothing will match current GOT imo).   They could probably stretch it out to 2-3 seasons.  

Exactly. Basically everyone dies.

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CGI alone isn't going to make people watch.  There will always be something better coming out.  GoT succeeded because it had a large core audience of book readers and because GoT had characters that people cared about.  Look, people are still talking about Hodor's sacrifice and Death.  And why, because of the CGI?  No, they cared because they cared about the character.  Jaime's scene with Myrcella, Tyrion telling Dany about how he had given up on life, Jorah showing Dany his greyscale, Ned being executed Jon's reunion with Sansa, these scenes work because we care about the characters, not because of any CGI around them.  Drama is character driven, always has been, always will be.  And therein lies the problem for the projects as supposed.  Unless you really pay attention to the forums and the like the characters from Westerosi "History" don't resonate.  Oh sure, a lot of the GoT audience will tune in for the first or second episode but unless you give them more than dragons and blood (and here I'm going to commit the ultimate heresy, I don't think that the GoT dragons are all that spectacular particularly in the full light of day (for me the most effective scene with the Dragons was when Tyrion goes to unchain them.  And even there most of the dragons are hidden in darkness which actually makes them scarier but what really makes the scene work is that we care of Tyrion is quick fried to a crackly crunch).   I'm certainly not going to watch a show just because it has dragons just like people didn't go to see "King Arthur, Legend of the Sword" because it had magical Elephants.

And also these "projects" really aren't going to be spinoffs.  None of the characters from GoT will appear.  A classic spinoff, like "Frazier" or "The Jeffersons" will take a character or two from a show and give them a show developed around them. That isn't going to happen here.  And while some of the family names will remain the same pretty soon you run into the danger of people saying, yeah, they're Starks and Lannisters but I really don't know who they are.  This has, IMO just become a dicey proposition because while it won't be a complete unknown quantity it will be close.  This will be basing a project on an outline while GoT came from fully developed books.  I know that HBO hires quality people but I do now think that far from this being a sure thing I think it has become a throw of the dice.

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