EW Reveals 7 Season Plan

[Calibandar]

Very interesting indeed. Further confirmation that season 5 is to sum up the majority of ADWD and AFFC, even though season 4 will already mix quite a bit of that in, if we go by their word ( and why shouldn't we).


So they're hoping book 6 will be released before season 6, as does everyone else. But that season is being written in the first half of 2015 already, so they'd need George to finish the book this year or early next year in order to have a chance at being faithful to the book.

[Faint]

So they're hoping book 6 will be released before season 6, as does everyone else. But that season is being written in the first half of 2015 already, so they'd need George to finish the book this year or early next year in order to have a chance at being faithful to the book.

Well, if we assume that Martin really is going to release the book before the sixth season (and his latest comments on the subject are somewhat encouraging), then, at worst, he will have already written a good chunk of it by early 2015. He has also written an episode every season, so you could always assign him to write the tenth episode of the sixth season, which would help matters if the book is not done yet.

[raj34]

Well, if we assume that Martin really is going to release the book before the sixth season (and his latest comments on the subject are somewhat encouraging), then, at worst, he will have already written a good chunk of it by early 2015. He has also written an episode every season, so you could always assign him to write the tenth episode of the sixth season, which would help matters if the book is not done yet.

Yeah, D&D should have a very large chunk of tWoW manuscript to work with when they're writing season 6. Season 7 on the other hand....

[Winnief]

Well, if we assume that Martin really is going to release the book before the sixth season (and his latest comments on the subject are somewhat encouraging), then, at worst, he will have already written a good chunk of it by early 2015. He has also written an episode every season, so you could always assign him to write the tenth episode of the sixth season, which would help matters if the book is not done yet.

Yeah, D&D should have a very large chunk of tWoW manuscript to work with when they're writing season 6. Season 7 on the other hand...

Agreed. Season 6 isn't what I'm worried about but Season 7 where they're most likely to have trouble keeping the tone right.

[Sun]

So they're hoping book 6 will be released before season 6, as does everyone else. But that season is being written in the first half of 2015 already, so they'd need George to finish the book this year or early next year in order to have a chance at being faithful to the book.

If he is to release by early 16 then he should have a first draft of the manuscript ready by early 15. The show writers can work from that.

[Faint]

If he is to release by early 16 then he should have a first draft of the manuscript ready by early 15. The show writers can work from that.

From what I understand, he doesn't write like that. He edits as he goes. There is no large manuscript that he then proceeds to edit once the whole draft has been finished. And using A Dance with Dragons as an example, he was not completely done with that book until a few months before publication, so the turnaround might be pretty fast.

[Sun]

From what I understand, he doesn't write like that. He edits as he goes. There is no large manuscript that he then proceeds to edit once the whole draft has been finished. And using A Dance with Dragons as an example, he was not completely done with that book until a few months before publication, so the turnaround might be pretty fast.

It certainly explains a lot. lol

[The Eunuch]

Very interesting comments from Graves. He essentially confirms that the fifth season will adapt all of books four and five.

It confims nothing at all. It confirms just that book four and five are mixed together, but it can last 2 seasons or more...

With the amount of popularity and money HBO is making with Game of Thrones, there's no way they'll rush the series in only 7 seasons. The contract re-negociation thing doesn't forbid series to go farther 7 seasons. It's just re-negociating contracts. If Game of Thrones cannot afford this, no other series can.

Plus, the many recasts throughout the series (Tommen, Dondarrion, Daario, Gregor...) proves that no actor should think they can't be replaced. Except Emilia, Peter and Kit, and maybe Lena/Nikolaj (the Stark kids won't ask millions, and the others can be replaced or written off if too greedy in the negociations...).

[Le Cygne]

From what I understand, he doesn't write like that. He edits as he goes. There is no large manuscript that he then proceeds to edit once the whole draft has been finished. And using A Dance with Dragons as an example, he was not completely done with that book until a few months before publication, so the turnaround might be pretty fast.

He said he edits at the end:

"That's a technique I learned in Hollywood, where my scripts were always too long. 'This is too long,' the studio would say. 'Trim it by eight pages.' But I hated to lose any good stuff -- scenes, dialogue exchanges, bits of action -- so instead I would go through the script trimming and tightening line by line and word by word, cutting out the fat and leaving the muscle. I found the process so valuable that I've done the same with all my books since leaving LA. It's the last stage of the process. Finish the book, then go through it, cutting, cutting, cutting. It produces a tighter, stronger text, I feel. In the case of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, my sweat -- most of it performed after we announced the book's publication date but before I delivered the final chapters -- brought the page count down almost eighty pages all by itself."

http://grrm.livejournal.com/217066.html

[TaenaOfMyr]

It confims nothing at all. It confirms just that book four and five are mixed together, but it can last 2 seasons or more...

With the amount of popularity and money HBO is making with Game of Thrones, there's no way they'll rush the series in only 7 seasons. The contract re-negociation thing doesn't forbid series to go farther 7 seasons. It's just re-negociating contracts. If Game of Thrones cannot afford this, no other series can.

Plus, the many recasts throughout the series (Tommen, Dondarrion, Daario, Gregor...) proves that no actor should think they can't be replaced. Except Emilia, Peter and Kit, and maybe Lena/Nikolaj (the Stark kids won't ask millions, and the others can be replaced or written off if too greedy in the negociations...).

I think they can push it to 8 seasons (or break season 7 into 2 parts like The Sopranos). But if they do so it will be to give Winds of Winter & Dream of Spring 3 seasons in total rather than the spread out AFFC and ADWD, for which large portions of the books are giving time to completely pointless storylines, such as Quentyn Martell and Brienne (all but the last chapter). Storylines such at those will surely be cut big time on the show (heck I've seen some speculation that Brienne's entire AFFC storyline will be over with by the end of THIS season). Just as HBO really shouldn't rush things, they also shouldn't drag things out which will be the case if we're not done with AFFC and ADWD by the end of season 5.

[The Eunuch]

they also shouldn't drag things out which will be the case if we're not done with AFFC and ADWD by the end of season 5.

Until now, they have been really faithful to the books. They even gave us 2 seasons for book 3. So why are so many people thinking they want to rush their most successful series? I don't see any reason to this.

Why should they rush the 4 last books into 3 seasons while any other company in this world would stretch it to make money (and there are a lot of examples in the industry : Breakind Bad finale season split in two, Harry Potter final book split in two films, even the last Twilight book where nothing happens). Only Game of Thrones would be rushed (while book 4 and 5 are enormous, and GRRM said that the last two books will be 1500 pages each).

My guess is :

Season 5 : first part of book 4 and book 5 (chronological order),

Season 6 : second part.

Season 7 : book 6.

Season 8 : book 7.

8 seasons is the least.

[Faint]

It confims nothing at all. It confirms just that book four and five are mixed together, but it can last 2 seasons or more..

His exact words: " . . . the show is still in the books and it won’t be out of the books here for another season and hopefully by then the first of the last books will be done . . . "

I don't see how I could have possibly misinterpreted that. Graves is essentially saying that the the show is still working off the books right now (i.e., fourth season), and that it won't be out of the books for another season (i.e., fifth season), and that he hopes by then the sixth book will have come out so they can use it for the following season (i.e., sixth season).

He said he edits at the end:

He edits again, but it is by no means his first pass through the material and it is not a process that takes many months. His editing after the manuscript has been completed seems to consist of tightening up the material, dealing with inconsistencies, figuring out whether to move material into the next novel and making grammatical corrections. These are not the whole scale changes and endless rewrites he does as he is actively writing the manuscript.

[Newstar]

His exact words: " . . . the show is still in the books and it won’t be out of the books here for another season and hopefully by then the first of the last books will be done . . . "

I don't see how I could have possibly misinterpreted that. Graves is essentially saying that the the show is still working off the books right now (i.e., fourth season), and that it won't be out of the books for another season (i.e., fifth season), and that he hopes by then the sixth book will have come out so they can use it for the following season (i.e., sixth season).

Yeah, I'm not seeing a lot of ambiguity there. Graves anticipates that the show will run out of material in one season...and really, if Season 4 is introducing Hizdahr in 4x03, sending Brienne off on her quest in 4x04, sending Bran on his quest to find Bloodraven in 4x02, and getting into AFFC and ADWD in other respects in Season 4, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that they're going to be able to cover the rest of AFFC and ADWD over the course of a single season.

We already suspected that there would be material from AFFC and ADWD mixed into the latter half of Season 4--Bran's, Brienne's and Theon's arcs for sure--although Tyrion's arc and others' will only go to the end of ASOS.

[Faint]

That isn't to say they still won't make eight seasons but, if they do, I find it far more probable that they spend three seasons on books six and seven rather than two seasons on books four and five.

It just makes much more sense. Imagine if HBO ends up deciding they do not want to go past seven seasons. Well, if they've spent two seasons covering the material from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, they will be in a situation where they'll have one season to adapt The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. That is just an out-and-out disaster.

The safe play is for Benioff and Weiss to move through the material from books four and five in one season so that, in a worst case scenario, they can properly finish off the series.

[littleRickon]

Well, if we assume that Martin really is going to release the book before the sixth season (and his latest comments on the subject are somewhat encouraging), then, at worst, he will have already written a good chunk of it by early 2015. He has also written an episode every season, so you could always assign him to write the tenth episode of the sixth season, which would help matters if the book is not done yet.

this would probably lead to season 6 having only 9 episodes and ending on a vanity card that says Ep. 10 grew into 3 episodes, but they aren't finished yet and will be shown somewhere between season 6 and 7, only to then be integrated into the start of season 7 altogether....

j/k of course

[The Eunuch]

Imagine if HBO ends up deciding they do not want to go past seven seasons.

Can you imagine someone at HBO saying "Guys, the ratings are too high and we earn too much money with Game of Thrones... We must end it quickly, even if the last book is not out. Who cares if the writer/executive producer and the readers are mad at us because we fool them and spoil the last book?".

GRRM told the ending to D&D in case he dies and to build up the storyline properly, not to allow them finishing for him. I don't care about what guys at HBO are saying (one contradicting the other), it is only promotion for season 4.

What I take in consideration :

-GOT's ratings are higher each new season,

-GOT's earnings are higher each new season,

-The common thing in the industry nowadays is to split everything that makes money to make more money (Time Warner is the owner of HBO, and look what they did with Harry Potter, the Hobbit...).

-GRRM said a year ago that he's confident he'll finish TWOW before the series catches up the books, and that it will be a big book so they can split it before the last book is finished

->No reason to end it quickly (the contract renegotiation is not unaffordable, and the kids growing up is not a problem if you accept that the time lapse of the series is longer than in the books).

[Baelor Swyft]

A popular show can lose most of its ratings between one season and the next, the examples are beyond count. A show that is a network's #1 hit can be cancelled immediately once the ratings drop. While I hope GoT will continue to grow, there's absolutely no guarantee that the ratings will stay high or that HBO will ask for 8 seasons. The next couple seasons might not be as exciting as the last couple.

I definitely don't think Feast & Dance will get more than 1 & 1/2 seasons. They'd be more wise to spend that time fleshing out Winds and Dream where there are probably a lot of exciting events, as its the conclusion to the story.

[Sun]

HBO is a cable channel which unlike network TV is not all about ratings. Ratings are not the sole determinate of a show's viability, cost, buzz, prestige, subscription draw and DVD sales.

Going into an 8th season will mean a substantial rise in cost for HBO based on Cast contracts alone, not to mention core writing and production staff. And there is a cost point - unknown to us ofcourse - where further investment in the show will trigger diminishing returns. Any network will avoid hitting that point.

There's also the shows currently in development. Unlike Network TV which generally throws out a number of pilots every season hoping for one to stick, with backups in the pipeline, Cable TV develops a small number of shows at high cost to slot in when other shows are scheduled to end. So they would really have to have a realistic view on when a particular show is ending in order to develop a show to replace it. This is not a last minute decision. Sunday nights at 9pm is a hot ticket slot.

There's also changing tastes to keep in mind. Remember when Mad Men was the critics' darling and the water cooler show? Suddenly this season the buzz is dead. The show hasn't lost quality, it's just that TV fashions have changed in the past 2 years.

Something else to consider is the show runners. D&D are already lining up other projects to take on after GOT. They are slated to develop and direct a movie. It's true that HBO conceivably can go on to make an 8th season without them, but this isn't community or The West Wing. GOT is a sprawling, logistically nightmarish show in scope and a new show runner will not find it easy to take over the reigns.

All this is not to say that an 8th season is not going to happen, just that I wouldn't bank on it until it is announced. 7 seasons is far more likely in my opinion.

[PatrickStormborn]

I think people are overestimating how many cast members will actually have to renegotiate their contracts for a prospective eighth season... Out of the cast members from the first season, how many of them are actually going to make it to the final season? I don't imagine Cersei and Jaime will(*), nor Littlefinger or Jorah (and it looks like Iain Glenn's contract might have changed already - he appeared at the end of the opening credits for 4x01, like Peter Dinklage in the first season).

So the only cast members who will probably be a problem are Dinklage, Kit Harrington, Emilia Clarke, and the three kids. The only two other cast members might be Alfie Allen and Rory McCann, both of whom could be removed from the story without the same consequences as the other six. (I'm not saying they will be removed, just that they have a much weaker position to negotiate than the other six.)

(*) I think it's possible they may survive till the final book, but not very far into it... meaning they could still be killed at the end of the seventh season.

[The Eunuch]

I totally agree with PatrickStormborn.

Sun : the project of D&D can be done in a few years or in the same time as GOT, like Harrington's Pompeï for instance... Unless there is a decrease in the ratings for the next seasons, there is no reason to think Game of Thrones's ending will be rushed by HBO.