The Future of Game of Thrones

[Westeros]

The last couple of days has seen some significant news concerning the future of Game of Thrones thanks to remarks from showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, as well as HBO executive Michael Lombardo.

First out of the gate was this Variety interview in which Benioff was quoted as saying:

“I think we’re down to our final 13 episodes after this season. We’re heading into the final lap,” said Benioff. “That’s the guess, though nothing is yet set in stone, but that’s what we’re looking at.”

Clarification from other sources—doubtless HBO—clarified that the numbers were premature, but did say that upcoming seasons may be shorter than 10 episodes per season. The piece goes on to cite programming president Michael Lombardo, who acknowledged that Benioff and Weiss wanted to wrap the show in two years, but added that he was an “optimist” and though they would “figure this out”.

 

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[Calibandar]

I'm not sure whether D&D are doing this because they really feel that they can no longer do the next two seasons justice with the time and resources they have if they have to do 10 episodes; or, that they feel there is simply not enough narrative left to tell for 20 more episodes; or, they are just geting exhausted doing this year after year and would rather do fewer episodes and put all the time money and energy into it. Or all of the above is true.

[Ben H'gahr]

2 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I'm not sure whether D&D are doing this because they really feel that they can no longer do the next two seasons justice with the time and resources they have if they have to do 10 episodes; or, that they feel there is simply not enough narrative left to tell for 20 more episodes; or, they are just geting exhausted doing this year after year and would rather do fewer episodes and put all the time money and energy into it. Or all of the above is true.

bold = this is true for sure and they said this on other occasions already. 

"Enough narrative left": well, D&D kinda had discretion about how much total narrative there's gonna be. E.g. if they had decided not to cut Quentin, there would be more narrative left - or rather, the story would not have progressed on screen as far as it has already. 

(The question why they introduced some plots that are not in the book (most famously the Dorne-Disaster of S5) can only be answered in the context of the final product, i.e. when the show's over)

Some people argued that the 13 episodes stretched over two seasons was a compromise between D&D (who wanted seven seasons) and HBO (who wants to milk the cash cow for as long as possible).

[SevasTra82]

On 4/16/2016 at 3:31 PM, Ben H'gahr said:

Some people argued that the 13 episodes stretched over two seasons was a compromise between D&D (who wanted seven seasons) and HBO (who wants to milk the cash cow for as long as possible).

If I had to make a guess, I think this is where things are starting to turn at the moment.  

Reading between the lines, it seemed to me as if D&D has always had in mind to keep this at 7-8 seasons tops.  Yet HBO seems to be wanting to (as you said), milk that cash cow.  Game of Thrones is still immensely popular and there is not doubt that HBO is wanting to squeeze every dollar out of this show as it possibly could....

...but by doing so, they are putting a lot of strain on D&D, who i'm suspecting (as pointed out above) are just exhausted by all this.  Success is a great thing, but there comes a point in time where you have to draw the line and continue with other ventures.  I'm positive this is also killing GRRM having to answer the same repetitive questions about the HBO show over and over again.

Imagine how happier GRRM would be if he didn't have to worry anymore about the HBO adaptation and touring, speaking and interviewing about it, etc.  Leaves him to just focus on the books.  

 

[JonSnowed]

GRRM is clearly very proud of the show if you read his notablog he also stated he will write for season 7 if he can finish Winds in time.

[Valhalla Morghulis]

As well as being tired and played out, without GRRM's novels to base the episodes on I can understand DD wanting to rap this up in 7.5 seasons. And then it seems likely HBO will continue with GRRM and work on spin off GOT shows.

[ummester]

All stories have to end. Better to end when interest is peak than when interest is waning. 7 books, seven seasons (well, 6 season and 2 short seasons, exactly like Harry Potter) - makes sense. 

[sj4iy]

I doubt it has anything to do with what HBO wants or about making more money.  They have repeatedly said that their time and resources are getting stretched each year as the action ramps up and the CGI becomes more necessary.  It's the very reason they have said that they opted for 10 episode seasons over 13 or more because they simply didn't have the time to make more...they chose quality over quantity.  This looks to be the same thing...we are undoubtedly looking at large scale battles in the end and those are incredibly difficult to fit into the time frame they have from year to year.

[ummester]

15 hours ago, sj4iy said:

I doubt it has anything to do with what HBO wants or about making more money.  They have repeatedly said that their time and resources are getting stretched each year as the action ramps up and the CGI becomes more necessary.  It's the very reason they have said that they opted for 10 episode seasons over 13 or more because they simply didn't have the time to make more...they chose quality over quantity.  This looks to be the same thing...we are undoubtedly looking at large scale battles in the end and those are incredibly difficult to fit into the time frame they have from year to year.

Yes, I agree - although it could also be large scale FX set pieces, not just battles.

[sj4iy]

2 hours ago, ummester said:

Yes, I agree - although it could also be large scale FX set pieces, not just battles.

That, too.  Basically, they are now producing movies instead of tv shows.

[marsyao]

The future of the game of throng? Downhill it goes

[Gronzag]

The next season should really, really, really be the last one, or the show will overstay it's pop culture welcome and the public will become very tired of it.

[marsyao]

5 hours ago, Gronzag said:

The next season should really, really, really be the last one, or the show will overstay it's pop culture welcome and the public will become very tired of it.

I guess it proves that the long time claim of D&D about they have great internal knowledge about the future of the novel is greatly exaggerated, without the guidance of GGRM’s masterpiece, these two simply can not do anything right

 

[boojam]

HBO has a problem. Vinyl , even tho renewed, looks like it will last only another season if ratings don't pick up and that looks bad.

Westworld production went into limbo for much longer than was announced, they have picked up again, but the sense of it is that Westworld is not going to work, I for one am not really interested in more than one season of Westworld.

GoT is a sensation in the Premium channel biz, I am pretty sure parent Time Warner is now involved and may try to influence any decision HBO makes. I think this show has made things complicated at the corporate level for Time Warner and HBO.

[Werthead]

Yes, HBO have a massive problem in that they've suddenly gone way too conservative with their project list. They had Preacher, American Gods and Dark Tower all ready to go, and then somehow managed to lose all three of them (to AMC, Starz and Sony Cinema respectively). Apart from Westworld, they have absolutely nothing on the radar that looks like it could replicate the success of Thrones, and even Westworld is a bit of a stretch.

They do have the rights to Isaac Asimov's Foundation, but it sounds like they haven't done anything with them and without completely changing the story from the books, it's not really going to appeal to the same audience as Thrones.

There are two mini-series that could work: Watchmen if Snyder is a producer in name only and lets someone better actually do the show, and The Mighty 8th, the third in their mega-budget WWII dramas (following on from Band of Brothers and The Pacific), but they'll be one-time only deals. Watchmen is also only early in development. The Mighty 8th should be shooting around about now.

I think if they tackled it head-on, Wild Cards could work if they picked up the rights when they lapse from SyFy (which should be any time around now) and that allows them to continue working with George. Plus HBO will likely want to do something in the superhero genre and it's a fairly adult series with lots of scope for both adapting stories and creating original material. Plus that's a show that could go on for quite a few years and would be very flexible with casting.

There's also The Warlord Chronicles, based on Bernard Cornwell's brilliant revisionist trilogy about Arthur, which Bad Wolf are developing, and they have a development deal with HBO already in place. That would probably only be a 3-season deal, but it could inherit the GoT audience if they market it right.

Then there's I, Claudius, which HBO has been developing for a few years. That'd basically be Rome: The Next Generation, which I think people would be fine with, plus the source material is great, and they even save a lot of money by reusing the Rome sets.

Something I think HBO would be very clever to get on top of is Peter Jackson's Temeraire TV project, based on the Naomi Novik novels. Jackson was developing it as a film, but decided that he'd never get to do all nine books that way and was a bit dragoned-out after The Hobbit. Having him on board as a producer would be a good marketing boon, you've still got the fantasy and dragons angle but you've also got the alternate-history angle to make it not look like a GoT retread.

Quote

I guess it proves that the long time claim of D&D about they have great internal knowledge about the future of the novel is greatly exaggerated, without the guidance of GGRM’s masterpiece, these two simply can not do anything right

They did clarify that. When they sat down with George 3 years ago to hash out the rest of the story, George warned them that he had landmarks (major plot moments) for characters on the way to their ultimate endings, but he didn't have everything 100% mapped out in every detail. He's also said in the past that he knows what happens to the major players but there's a massive swathe of secondary characters - some of whom are quite big characters on the show - whose ultimate fates he hasn't worked out yet. I think he mentioned Bronn as falling into that category.

So it now sounds like the 2013 Santa Fe Summit may have been more about D&D and B-Cog creating their own outline for the rest of the show, presumably with input from George, more than them getting a heavily detailed plot summary from GRRM.

[boojam]

25 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yes, HBO have a massive problem in that they've suddenly gone way too conservative with their project list. They had Preacher, American Gods and Dark Tower all ready to go, and then somehow managed to lose all three of them (to AMC, Starz and Sony Cinema respectively). Apart from Westworld, they have absolutely nothing on the radar that looks like it could replicate the success of Thrones, and even Westworld is a bit of a stretch.

They do have the rights to Isaac Asimov's Foundation, but it sounds like they haven't done anything with them and without completely changing the story from the books, it's not really going to appeal to the same audience as Thrones.

 

Then there's I, Claudius, which HBO has been developing for a few years. That'd basically be Rome: The Next Generation, which I think people would be fine with, plus the source material is great, and they even save a lot of money by reusing the Rome sets.

 

So it now sounds like the 2013 Santa Fe Summit may have been more about D&D and B-Cog creating their own outline for the rest of the show, presumably with input from George, more than them getting a heavily detailed plot summary from GRRM.

I would never in a million years have picked P K Dick's Man in a High Castle as a TV series , it is a rather difficult novel and all 'inner voice'.

Yet Amazon has has done well by it , if uneven. They have actually 'action-o-fied' Man and made at least half of the story compelling. It has been renewed, where that goes , god knows, since Dick wrote no sequels to Man in a High Castle.

I, Claudius sounds really intriguing , the BBC version was a masterpiece but very stage bound, with a good cast this could be dynamite.

I love Asimov's Foundation, with a lot of imagination and I mean a lot of hard work the story could be also be action-o-fied. If it had the verisimilitude and production design of GoT it could be a winner, I think it could be done but would take top talent to keep the best parts and morph the rest.

One thing series like GoT , Fargo, The Expanse , Man in a High Castle .... a few others... are Off-Center - Oddly Framed adult dramas not seen on TV (well not the movies either) today , I think that's their appeal. May be time to tap source materials that are not comic book cliches.

[Richard Writhen]

That Westworld teaser was quite intriguing.

[ummester]

12 hours ago, marsyao said:

I guess it proves that the long time claim of D&D about they have great internal knowledge about the future of the novel is greatly exaggerated, without the guidance of GGRM’s masterpiece, these two simply can not do anything right

Or GRRM told them one ending and has since changed his mind and headed another way. Or, what I think has happened, GRRM was never exactly sure where it was all going - IMO, a masterpiece needs a grand plan, and I think it is coming more and more to light that this series never had one, on paper or screen.

[marsyao]

46 minutes ago, ummester said:

Or GRRM told them one ending and has since changed his mind and headed another way. Or, what I think has happened, GRRM was never exactly sure where it was all going - IMO, a masterpiece needs a grand plan, and I think it is coming more and more to light that this series never had one, on paper or screen.

There is zero chance GRRM would ever create an outline of his future novels that has such bad quality, I would guess GRRM only have a brief idea about where his novel would go, but nothing very concrete, that would perfectly explain as soon as leave the guidence of GRRM's published novels, the quality of the show immediately go downhill fast

[boojam]

45 minutes ago, ummester said:

Or GRRM told them one ending and has since changed his mind and headed another way. Or, what I think has happened, GRRM was never exactly sure where it was all going - IMO, a masterpiece needs a grand plan, and I think it is coming more and more to light that this series never had one, on paper or screen.

What I recollect is that GRRM has a climax and has not changed that. The books have set up a certain big event in the future , George could surprise me , but I don't think it's going to change, in fact the titles of novel 6 and 7 are shadows of what happens.

I think GRRM had told them all the story in broad strokes (as he says) and seems the stroy will land in the same spot, but from here on out I think the show is going to tell a totally different story up until that final climatic event.

I think George may change an event in the narrative , he has hinted at this, but no the biggest plot goal.