Hiram McDrogon Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 An R rated movie, which requires the viewing of at a minimum 70 episodes of a television show that aired on premium cable is not going to be anywhere as successful as those who throw this out there think it will be. Thanks for highlighting this. To me that's the deal breaker - I don't see any way that a big-budget film, requiring 70 hours of pre-watching, could possibly succeed. There simply aren't enough people who would go to see it. Spin-off made-for-TV movies like Battlestar Galactica had? I could see those working, but only for side stories (or Dunk and Egg), and not for the main story. Air the final episodes in a theatre as a special deal, like Doctor Who? That could work, although even then I'm not so sure; Doctor Who doesn't really require much preparation to watch. Although it does amuse me to imagine an opening scroll for the Game of Thrones film, like in the Star Wars movies - "just enough" to provide backstory for those who don't know what's going on. How long would that scroll be? About 90 minutes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oierem Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Agreed. Besides, the idea that Martin is suggesting (IF we reach season 7 and the show is still succesfull) is absurd: they have to plan the ending of the series and decide NOW when it's going to end. With the current plan, once they reach season 7 the story will be over, so it does not matter whether the series is still succesfull enough to warrant a movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RooseIsLoose Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Just read the fst page of this thread although I want the movie to happen (the final battles of TWOW and ADOS will look cheap as hell on TV) I find it very unlikely.Having said that though I think you're underestimating how popular a movie would be in the cinemas. The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary was screened in cinemas and was 2nd in box office over the weekend in the USA despite the fact the vast majority of it's fanbase is in the UK and you could watch it at home for free. Game Of Thrones is a lot more popular than Doctor Who and I'm sure nearly everyone who watches it would go to find out the ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Just read the fst page of this thread although I want the movie to happen (the final battles of TWOW and ADOS will look cheap as hell on TV) I find it very unlikely.Having said that though I think you're underestimating how popular a movie would be in the cinemas. The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary was screened in cinemas and was 2nd in box office over the weekend in the USA despite the fact the vast majority of it's fanbase is in the UK and you could watch it at home for free. Game Of Thrones is a lot more popular than Doctor Who and I'm sure nearly everyone who watches it would go to find out the ending. Doctor Who was shown simultaneously with the tv broadcast, then given one day for encores. It grossed about $10m worldwide, if I recall correctly. Something like that could work for HBO (a one-time special event), but they can't straight up make a movie with a movie budget to end their most popular series. A one time special event is one thing...an actual movie that won't air on HBO is another. And as awesome as Game of Thrones is, it's not more popular than Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a family program, GoT is not. Family programming will always be more popular because it has a wider audience. I will watch Doctor Who with my 5 year old...I wouldn't even watch GoT with my teenage nephews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cxvb Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary was screened in cinemas and was 2nd in box office over the weekend in the USA despite the fact the vast majority of it's fanbase is in the UK and you could watch it at home for free. Game Of Thrones is a lot more popular than Doctor Who and I'm sure nearly everyone who watches it would go to find out the ending. going by wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Doctor#Ratings "The box office takings for the cinema screenings totalled £1.7m (US$2.2m), which placed it at number three in the UK film chart for the week, ... Worldwide, cinema screenings brought $10.2 million at the box office. The cinema screenings in the USA, on a total of 660 screens nationwide, took a total of US$4.8m (approx £3m) at the box office" So yeah, they could show the last two episodes in cinemas as well, and make 10.2 million extra. Sounds like a good idea to justify a larger CGI budget. But as an argument for a movie finale with a movie budget the Dr. Who example very strongly suggest the opposite of what you're arguing for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RooseIsLoose Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 And as I said for one weekend it was second in US box office behind Catching Fire. Plus it was released with a load of big movies so screens were limited but all sold out. And most of the 10m takings were from screenings two days after the episode already aired for free.Granted the BBC only spent about £2m on the special so it's hardly comparible with a movie budget. But GoT already works with like a £12m budget, soto boost that to £25 for a final 2 hour long cinema special with oots of CGI goodness would be awesome. And as I say the demand would be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 And as I said for one weekend it was second in US box office behind Catching Fire. Plus it was released with a load of big movies so screens were limited but all sold out. And most of the 10m takings were from screenings two days after the episode already aired for free.Granted the BBC only spent about £2m on the special so it's hardly comparible with a movie budget. But GoT already works with like a £12m budget, soto boost that to £25 for a final 2 hour long cinema special with oots of CGI goodness would be awesome. And as I say the demand would be there. Not quite. Each episode of GoT has a budget of about $6m. http://mic.com/articles/87169/here-s-how-much-it-costs-to-make-a-game-of-thrones-episode I don't know where you get £12m, but that's far larger than the budget for a typical episode. There's not way that they would drop £25m for the finale of the show on top of what they are already paying to make the rest of the season. That would nearly septuple their production costs for one episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RooseIsLoose Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Wasn't Watchers On The Wall 12m? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeKeepsDragons Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Yeah. If Martin is directly involved and has more control than he does on the show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Wasn't Watchers On The Wall 12m? $12m, not £12m (which is $20m). But it was obviously a special battle episode. I'm sure that, for a special event or last episode, HBO will extend the budget for GoT...but nothing like $40m. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-26dp Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 $6 million is an average (and it's gone up each season). I believe Blackwater, for example, had 2/3 the budget as the rest of the season 2 episodes put together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeKeepsDragons Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Thanks for highlighting this. To me that's the deal breaker - I don't see any way that a big-budget film, requiring 70 hours of pre-watching, could possibly succeed. There simply aren't enough people who would go to see it. Spin-off made-for-TV movies like Battlestar Galactica had? I could see those working, but only for side stories (or Dunk and Egg), and not for the main story. Air the final episodes in a theatre as a special deal, like Doctor Who? That could work, although even then I'm not so sure; Doctor Who doesn't really require much preparation to watch. Although it does amuse me to imagine an opening scroll for the Game of Thrones film, like in the Star Wars movies - "just enough" to provide backstory for those who don't know what's going on. How long would that scroll be? About 90 minutes?Not so sure. The Harry Potter movies can each stand on their own even if you have not seen the other's. They could do that here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 $6 million is an average (and it's gone up each season). I believe Blackwater, for example, had 2/3 the budget as the rest of the season 2 episodes put together. They received a 15% increase to stage Blackwater, giving it a budget of $15m. That's not 2/3 of the budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-26dp Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 They received a 15% increase to stage Blackwater, giving it a budget of $15m. That's not 2/3 of the budget. I got some bad facts then. My bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RooseIsLoose Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Then upgrading the budget to $25 for the final episode surely isn't too unreasonable. The action scenes in Blackwater and WotW were pretty awesome, but if we're going for epic dragon scale battles, we're gonna need more CGI establishing shots of the battles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiram McDrogon Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Not so sure. The Harry Potter movies can each stand on their own even if you have not seen the other's. They could do that here. I'm not sure I agree with that ... even having read the books, I found the final film rather confusing. But also, the Harry Potter films are pretty easy to set up: musical cues and general custom tells you "OK, these three kids are the good guys, and the guy with a slit for a nose is the villain. Oh, and the villains all laugh manically, wear black, and generally look evil." And there are only, what, 3-4 different story lines, versus how many in Game of Thrones? Harry Potter is a good versus evil narrative that's very easy to comprehend. Game of Thrones is not that kind of narrative, and I'd think it'd be almost impossible to make a finale film stand on its own. On the Doctor Who film (and RooseIsLoose, love the Tenth Eleventh Oh who knows Doctor avatar): if it was second for just one weekend in the USA, then I'd say that speaks against the worth of a Game of Thrones finale film. A big-budget fantasy should be winning the box office for a couple of weeks to make it worth the company's while - and I'd be very surprised if Game of Thrones can pull that off. The audience is simply too small; you're already mostly limited to people who'd just follow the show. Then you're limited to an adult audience. Then you're limited to people who even bother to go to a cinema, which more and more is basically only people under 25. A somewhat expanded budget for the final few episodes, and perhaps a simultaneous cinema showing as a (profitable) treat for fans? Feasible (but note I've only seen this discussed in this thread!) But a separate film-only release seems very unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatGatsby Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 How delusional can GRRM get? Lol. Someone from HBO needs to drop him from all show input, and quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sword of the Morgan Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 I could see the Dunk and Egg stories as movies, also the Princess and the Queen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalseKnight Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 How delusional can GRRM get? Lol. Someone from HBO needs to drop him from all show input, and quickly.They did. He just spun it as taking the time to write his book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeKeepsDragons Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 They did. He just spun it as taking the time to write his book. Yup. And it is why I dropped hbo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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