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HBO Executives Discuss Programming


Westeros

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Stuart Levine at Variety interview HBO’s co-president Richard Plepler and programming president Michael Lombardo (who’s been a good source for Game of Thrones information) about their programming plans. Much of it deals with the challenges of programming when they have so many high-quality original series, mini-series, and documentaries, and having to turn away interesting, high-quality projects because they simply don’t have the room in their schedule.

They do discuss Game of Thrones to some degree towards the end of the interview, where they confirm it will air in the 2nd quarter (which means that at present it’s airing no later than March). Here’s a few quotes:

RP: I would just say this: While it is a different genre, the storytelling piece, meaning the themes that it takes up—power and strife and people vying for their piece of the crown, metaphorically—those are themes that have been all over the network for years. And David Benioff, who’s the creator, had a wonderful line at the very beginning of this project. He said, “You’ll quickly forget where you are, because the themes are universal.” Having read all the scripts, I think that’s absolutely true.

ML: At this point, we have not seen any cuts. All we have seen are dailies.

RP: And the pilot. It’s beautiful.

And sci-fi fans and fantasy who have been very satisfied with “True Blood” are probably willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

ML: You know the interesting thing about this show is I am not a sci-fi fan, and this show really transcends the genre. When we first read the pilot script, there is nothing that really gives you a full hint of the magic in the Martin books. It’s a bunch of compelling and well-crafted stories. There are such interesting and complex characters that we were excited by the drama, not by the genre. I hope people don’t look at this as a genre play and refrain from taking a look at it, because I think it is much more than that.

RP: I think it’ll satisfy the passion of its natural fan base, but also intrigue and satisfy those people who might not typically be connected to the sci-fi genre. That would be fantastic for us, and I think that’s really likely.

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Man. I am so sick of people defending the show by saying it's not really sci-fi.

It's like the sci-fi vs. true literature argument all over again.

Yeah, it's annoying. Is fantasy only real fantasy when it's rubbish?

But in the case of ASOIAF, it means that the fantasy elements are not the central focus of the plot, unlike what you might traditionally regard as fantasy (such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter). The story so far could have been told without any fantasy elements at all, given a little judicious replacement of elements. LOTR and HP could not have been told at all without magic.

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Man. I am so sick of people defending the show by saying it's not really sci-fi.

Considering who HBO are talking to, I can see why they are taking that tact. They know they have us hook, line and sinker. So they want to make sure that they don't frighten away the rest of the potential audience (which will make up 95% of the viewership probably). And they are right that its not your typical fantasy series.

Interesting that Q2 means Q2 of their financial year. I thought for a minute we could expect an Apr-June release.

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But in the case of ASOIAF, it means that the fantasy elements are not the central focus of the plot, unlike what you might traditionally regard as fantasy (such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter). The story so far could have been told without any fantasy elements at all, given a little judicious replacement of elements. LOTR and HP could not have been told at all without magic.

This is not true, I'm afraid. Or at least, insofar as it is arguably true, it's only in reference to the 'main' part of the War of Five Kings. Dany's plotline, Jon's, Bran's, even stuff like the BwB or Stannis' plot just simply couldn't work without magic. So, ASOIAF can't be told without magic either, I'd say. (In fact I'd argue it's even more essential to ASOIAF than it is to LOTR.)

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Some people are genuinely turned off by fantasy/sci-fi as genres, even though they have never really given either genre a chance. The genres come with a stigma. They hear "Fantasy" and think Tolkien. They hear "sci-fi" and think Star Wars.

Yet, we've seen that when a story is good, the genre can transcend itself (as I believe it does in Martin's books).

I'm not terribly worried. I honestly think they make comments like that to cater to the people out there who (through naive ignorance) really don't know any better.

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Yes, but that still annoys me.

First, ASOIAF is a fantasy. If you're going to say that the magical aspects aren't center and its thus not really, really fantasy, then, well, that argument could apply to a whole ton of stuff. You could say the same about the Farseer Trilogy, for example. It's just a matter of scale. But anyhoo I don't care what people say, ASOIAF has fucking dragons in it - dragons, people. Plus 9-year long summers, Others, main characters that are joined to wolves, shadow babies, etc etc. I know GRRM has said that he downplays the fantasy elements in ASOIAF, but that doesn't mean they aren't there and essential to the story.

Second, I hate the idea that HBO is downplaying the fantasy element because they don't want to scare off normal viewers who make up some large part of the public. I personally think that the idea that normal people don't do well with fantasy and sci-fi is old fashioned and outdated. That's a pre-LOTR idea. It's not like the Lord of the Rings was in a niche market or anything. We're talking about one of the most successful of all movie trilogies, not just fantasy trilogies. And then there's - dare I say it - Avatar. Do I even need to go there?

Plus HBO has already reaped the success of sci-fi and fantasy with True Blood. It's one of the most watched shows on TV and it's not like you hear people apologizing for liking it because there are vampires in it. Sure, some people won't watch it because there are vampires in it, but some people didn't watch Deadwood because it was a western. But nobody was trying to pretend that Deadwood didn't come out of the western genre.

I am a firm believer that all of these genre distinctions are mostly a result of the identity that the consumers/fans want to construct for themselves. That's why there's such a huge bruhaha over whether something is urban fantasy or paranormal romance, dark fantasty, so on and so on. It's about whether the reader/viewer wants to think of themself as a paranormal romance fan or not. So I can see that HBO might be trying to calm down audience members who don't think of themselves as fantasy fans.

But I think the number of people who would say that they don't watch 'that fantasy and sci-fi bullshit' is actually statistically minor these days. I think there are a lot more people who would say they won't watch westerns, instead. FFS, this is the post-LOTR, post-Batman Returns, post-Avatar world! Get with it, people!

I just wish HBO would own the fact that they are breaking into the fantasy genre, rather than hiding from it!

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Yes, I really think their take on this is that if people who are just knee-jerk opposed to fantasy give it a chance, they'll get hooked. Hence, you downplay the fantasy in write-ups like this (aimed at a very particular audience, mostly entertainment industry people and those who report on them) but it doesn't really mean it's gone.

It'd be great if they said, we love fantasy ourselves, this is unabashedly a fantasy, and you're going to live it because X, Y, an Z. It's sad that the reality is that the business requires some dancing around the terms "fantasy" or "sci-fi", at least when you're HBO and you've spent $45 million+ on this.

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It's sad that the reality is that the business requires some dancing around the terms "fantasy" or "sci-fi", at least when you're HBO and you've spent $45 million+ on this.

But I can't believe this is actually true anymore. I need numbers, Ran, numbers :)

Actually, I don't. But I will stand by my disbelief that marketing this as "HBO TAKES ON FANTASY MUTHERFUCKERS!!!" would hurt the viewership.

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Okay, let me amend that: it's sad that the common wisdom is that, etc., etc. It's true, maybe if HBO just said outright what we all want them to say, it wouldn't do a thing to hurt them. We just don't know.

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Sure, fantasy has worked on the big screen but serious fantasy hasn't got anywhere on TV.

This is a valid observation. Sure, there's True Blood, and Battlestar Galactica, and Lost, and ST: The Next Generation, and The X-Files, and Dr. Who, etc etc. As far as I am aware, there hasn't really been any attempt to make serious fantasy for TV. So I can buy this risky aspect of the endeavor.

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Yeah, I think SF has somewhat more credibility than fantasy, as far as that goes, because there have been all of these shows and successes. But fantasy, especially serious costume fantasy, doesn't have that track record. Mostly, maybe, because people haven't tried it (at least not on TV).

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As someone who doesn't like fantasy/scifi books normally, I can appreciate what they are trying to do. I have had to convince many people to read the books, who like me, heard they were fantasy and their knee jerk reaction is to not be interested. Of course, once they read them, they agree that while the fantasy element is important, it's not even close to the best part of the books - it's the political intrigue, the mysteries between the lines, the dynamic, gray characters and the well-written POV's. The fantasy elements, while important to the plot, fade into the background. I think that's all HBO is trying to say.

Fantasy on TV has been fairly shitty, so I don't blame HBO to try to get the average viewer to turn in and not scare them off with the fantastical elements. I know that if I didn't read the books, I would only be interested in this show because of Sean Bean and the fact that HBO is making it.

Edit: I would also watch because of Aiden Gillen and Peter Dinklage, and I would have watched because of Jennifer Ehle if she had remained in the cast.

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Or are vampires now permanently de-genre-ized?

I'll take that option. Vampires seem to have been very acceptable for a while now.

And HBO played up the sex and violence angle (which is very much part of the vampire genre), so it all worked out.

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I think with True Blood they had two things goinig for it: a) vampires are already hugely popular, b ) it was created by Alan Ball who created Six Feet Under, so all of the fans of that show were already going to watch this one when it started. Between those two things, I don't think they had to sound like they were making excuses for it.

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Also in the case of True Blood word of mouth did wonders for the number of viewers, they started with average ratings to what the show does now mainly because of the good press and the fans (of course vampires being the in thing didn't hurt).

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I don't see how it is supposed to help, since in my experience stigma against fantasy comes mostly from the idea of a secondary world (which Westeros obviously is) and not magical elements as such. Many people will accept stories about vampires, zombies and even dragons as long as they are set in "real" world, but the idea of a neverneverland is an instant deal breaker to them.

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