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Bryan Cogman, the Third Head of the Game of Thrones Dragon, Moves On to LOTR


Krishtotter

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Interesting article on my favourite former GoT writer. 

It explains that GRRM really wanted Cogman's sequel to go ahead, because he felt himself on the same wavelength as him, but after HBO opted for Jane Goldman's proposal he went into bed with Amazon instead in a big way.

We learn that he was put "straight to work" by his new Amazon bosses on a "hotly anticipated project" that Cogman can't yet disclose and that, at the same time, he will also be working out his own shows as well:

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/bryan-cogman-game-of-thrones

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Handpicked by George R.R. Martin to pitch a Game of Thrones prequel to HBO, Cogman is instead now working for Amazon—where he just might be the guy who creates the world's next obsession-worthy series.

Turner, who began playing Sansa Stark when she was 13, says Cogman is the backbone of Game of Thrones.Coster-Waldau, who played Jaime Lannister, refers to him as the “walking encyclopedia.”

But George R. R. Martin, who wrote the books that show-runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss adapted into what may be the last universally agreed-upon hit TV show, leans on his own Westerosi mythology to pay the highest compliment: “Dave and Dan—even though there were two of them, there really needed to be three. Bryan was the third head of the dragon.”

Hired as Weiss and Benioff's assistant when Game of Thrones first began production, Cogman wrote 11 episodes of the series—second only to the show-runners and more than Martin himself—and as a producer has three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series displayed in his living room. Martin personally asked Cogman to pitch a Thrones prequel series to HBO; when the network passed, he moved on to a deal at Amazon Studios, where, to borrow another phrase from Martin's books, he can cast a very large shadow of his own on this post-Thrones universe.

“You're only number two on the biggest show of all time once,” Cogman says, aware that Thrones-sized success may be a thing of the past for television as a whole. “So what do you want to do with that opportunity when the show ends? You try to see if you can tell your own stories.”

Tipped off by his wife to Benioff's early interest in the books, Cogman had read the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series in the hope of a small role in the show—“Maybe I'll get to play a guy with a spear!” By the time he was in the room with Weiss and Benioff, Cogman had started re-reading—he estimates he's read the first book, A Game of Thrones, at least 20 times now—and boiling down the dense and complicated world of Westeros into digestible outlines, family trees, and quick little summaries.

“We thought we knew the books pretty well, but Bryan was just on a different level,” Weiss and Benioff wrote in a joint e-mail. That work landed Cogman a seat in every meeting and was a godsend to every confused HBO executive, director, production designer, and actor.

Martin hasn't commented much on his relationship with HBO and the series, but he is unreserved in his praise for Cogman: “I feel simpatico with Bryan,” Martin says. “He's helped keep the show true to my books, and the characters true to the characters I created, which may not be important to everybody in the world, but is certainly important to me.”

HBO underwent a transformation as well. Once best-known as a boutique home for prestige TV, the premium cable channel was acquired last summer by AT&T, and an executive revealed plans to increase HBO's output of original content by 50 percent in 2019.

For a while, Cogman thought one of those new shows would be his to run. He had no ambition to do any kind of Thrones sequel until Martin asked him personally at a dinner with Weiss and Benioff in May 2017. There was a particular story he felt only Cogman could tell. (Many fans have guessed that it's the Targaryen-centric Dance of the Dragons tale, but for now Martin and Cogman are keeping it to themselves.) “The logical heir was Bryan,” Martin says. “He had been there since the very beginning.”

Despite himself, Cogman yielded to the excitement of the project. But the timing couldn't have been worse. Cogman had to pitch HBO his prequel idea while the final season of Game of Thrones was in production, and he was in a bake-off with four other writers, some of whom had also worked with Martin. Weiss and Benioff gave Cogman their blessing but were busy wrapping up their own time in Westeros, which meant any advice they gave was incidental: “Every now and then we'd discuss something or other while we were shivering in the writer's tent in Northern Ireland,” they wrote.

Collaborating with Martin on the prequel pitch, Cogman felt both a pressure and an arrogance that came from being the only contender in the race who had both worked on the original series and was handpicked by Martin. He spent the bulk of the final season's shoot under the impression that this wasn't truly his final season. “I wasn't really doing the kind of emotional, cathartic work one needs to do to say goodbye to everything,” he says.

Cogman found out he didn't get the job in spring 2018, and that Jane Goldman would, instead, be helming a series centered on the earliest days of Westeros. 

“It hit me hard, not because I thought there was any great injustice. I'm sure Jane's show is going to be great,” Cogman says. “But all the insecurities come up: What, I can't even write Game of Thrones now?”

The story Martin so favored may live on at HBO, but Cogman is ready to try new things. Last September, Amazon Studios snapped him up and put him to work—the day after he picked up his third Emmy for Thrones—consulting on a hotly anticipated project he can't yet disclose. But, most exciting for Cogman, he will be developing a whole raft of shows that may have nothing whatsoever to do with dragons.

Martin still texts regularly with Cogman, and has offered occasional friendly input as Cogman searches for new books that Amazon might adapt. “I hope to work with him again someday if the various corporate entities that we work for allow it,” Cogman jokes. But Martin himself is locked into an overall deal with HBO, and Cogman, finally, is ready to move on. He attended the splashy Game of Thrones Season Eight premiere at Radio City Music Hall in April, but the following Monday he was back to work at Amazon, with a large-scale poster of a trio of his favorites—Arya, Sansa, and Brienne—watching over him.

“I was number two to the captain, and now I've gotta see if I can sit in that captain's chair,” Cogman says. “I'm looking forward to finding my people the way Dan and David found theirs.”

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

Last September, Amazon Studios snapped him up and put him to work—the day after he picked up his third Emmy for Thrones—consulting on a hotly anticipated project he can't yet disclose. But, most exciting for Cogman, he will be developing a whole raft of shows that may have nothing whatsoever to do with dragons.

This is obviously the bit that has piqued my interest the most.

He is already working for them, and has been since they brought him on board last September, on an already established and "hotly anticipated" project that he isn't yet at liberty to disclose. I wonder what it could be? 

It can't be Wheel of Time because we already know the writers room for that, and Cogman is not in it, although GoT's other stalwart Dave Hill is.

The logical deduction would be LoTR, about which Amazon has so far been extremely secretive (even to the extent of keeping it's writers room in a place with no windows and top-notch security to avoid information leaks of scripts and plans) and we know that there is a "writers room" under the two (largely unknown) showrunners but don't yet know who is in it.

We've had basically no official disclosures of information on this LoTR series apart from the fact that it's going to be set during the Second Age and concern Númenor. I'm not sure why they are keeping it so under wraps.

Or, failing that, it might actually be Stephen King's edgy fantasy Dark Tower, which Amazon is also adapting. I'm pretty sure it will be one of their fantasy adaptions and WoT is clearly ruled out, so these two are the remaining options as I see it.

And, in addition to this mystery project, he will be developing a ton of his own shows, apparently. 

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I suspect he is consulting on LotR but ultimately might have his own show in development. It will be interesting to see if that is a totally original show, or if it will be another book adaptation, and if GRRM might have sent him some ideas on what books to look at.

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12 hours ago, Werthead said:

I suspect he is consulting on LotR but ultimately might have his own show in development. It will be interesting to see if that is a totally original show, or if it will be another book adaptation, and if GRRM might have sent him some ideas on what books to look at.

I did read somewhere that Amazon was getting him to scout for books to adapt, so I reckon that an adaption of a novel (or two!) is certainly in the pipeline, along with original material.

The article mentions that GRRM still advises him and that they would love to work together again if only their networks could allow it.

In terms of the mystery project he's consulting on, I do think it's LoTR but I wonder what capacity "consultancy" entails? For some reason, he can't yet "disclose" his involvement. 

 

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18 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

Martin still texts regularly with Cogman, and has offered occasional friendly input as Cogman searches for new books that Amazon might adapt

Ah, here's the bit from the article @Werthead 

So definetely a book adaption in the pipeline, by the looks of things and GRRM has being offering him friendly input.

 

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23 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Martin confirmed last night that Cogman is working on LOTR.

That genuinely comforts me. Still nervous mind. I hope they don't fill it up with cgi like Jackson did with The Hobbit movies, and rather keep the same production values he had with the LotR trilogy. 

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6 hours ago, Mexal said:

Martin confirmed last night that Cogman is working on LOTR.

YUP, you are absolutely right. I read it today from TheOneRing.net

 

 

They clarified later on that he hasn't replaced the original two showrunners - JD Payne and Patrick McKay - but that he is working "together" with them, they added: "sort of like a fellowship" (no subtlety there!). 

Honestly, I'm very happy about this. I had been suspecting for a long time that Cogman was consulting on LoTR.

Thank god the writing team now has someone with actual executive experience under their belt and in a fantasy TV-epic to boot. 

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I think the "One Ring" appear to have made a Freudian slip in stating that Cogman was now 'leading' the project. 

Variety has reiterated that he is 'consulting' and 'working with/alongside' the two showrunners. 

What does 'consultation' actually entail? 

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1 hour ago, Krishtotter said:

What does 'consultation' actually entail? 

Hmmm... Turning the bedroom scene in Bree into a jizz-addled rape fest where the Nazgul, having narrowly missed the hobbits, take out their frustrations on poor old Butterbur by skull-fucking his freshly decapitated noggin? 

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27 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Hmmm... Turning the bedroom scene in Bree into a jizz-addled rape fest where the Nazgul, having narrowly missed the hobbits, take out their frustrations on poor old Butterbur by skull-fucking his freshly decapitated noggin? 

You have a vivid and filthy imagination.

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12 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Hmmm... Turning the bedroom scene in Bree into a jizz-addled rape fest where the Nazgul, having narrowly missed the hobbits, take out their frustrations on poor old Butterbur by skull-fucking his freshly decapitated noggin? 

After all we've been through, the world needs a Middle Earth sexposition scene.

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*Samwise* Oh, Mister Frodo!
*Frodo* What is it, Sam?
*
Samwise* Someone's eaten all the magical elven oatcakes. We'll never make it home from Mordor now.
*
Frodo*
*Samwise* Oh, Mister Frodo.
*Tom Bombadil* Nevermind all that. Play with his arse.

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16 hours ago, Spockydog said:

*Samwise* Oh, Mister Frodo!
*Frodo* What is it, Sam?
*
Samwise* Someone's eaten all the magical elven oatcakes. We'll never make it home from Mordor now.
*
Frodo*
*Samwise* Oh, Mister Frodo.
*Tom Bombadil* Nevermind all that. Play with his arse.

OK, I'll admit it.

That was kind of funny.

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On 5/21/2019 at 11:35 PM, Krishtotter said:

What does 'consultation' actually entail? 

There's a huge realignment going on inside Amazon. The people who developed LotR have been fired and there's indications that apparently the sheer cost of the project was a concern. They also hired two guys with absolutely not showrunning experience to work on this project.

My guess is that Cogman has been brought in to low-key oversee production with his GoT experience and will step in as needed, possibly moving up to a showrunner/producer/writer on Season 2 (you'd hope they'd have completed Season 1's scripts by now, since they start shooting in ~10 weeks) if necessary. If the existing team turn out to be pretty good - and they appear to have been responsible for the Second Age Pivot, which has been well-received - Cogman could switch attention to other projects (he seems to have been advising already on the Wheel of Time as well).

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