The Cost.. how will HBO afford this?

[xythil]

People tend to ask about the CGI but that is the last thing I would be concerened about for this series. There are hardly any supernatural things occuring in ASOIAF as compared to other fantasy. This isn't Rand Althor throwing fireballs and shattering the earth... This is 90% political intrigue with some wolves, dragons, and zombies.

The real cost is the actors. There are no main characters in ASOIAF. There is a HUGE ensemble of characters that all come in and out of the story over the course of the series. How will they get around this and still keep the series affordable?

I mean sure you have the major POVs.. Ned, Cersei, Cat, Jon ect.. but then you have ALL jons wall friends, the nights watch, the gold cloaks, the small council, the different houses like tyrell/martell/vale/riverlands ect.. the list goes on. You have important knights and minor lords that are important. I mean just think of Berric/Thoros. they are minor but ALWAYS around and important to the story. Gregor/Vargo/Tywin/Ahsa.. characters liek these that are not just background characters yet not featured in every episode or even every other episode.

Will we lose a bunch of these what I would call "more than supporting" characters? How will they afford this otherwise?

[Ran]

Carnivale had 17 actors in the opening credits its first season. I don't really believe this will be an issue, so long as the show is a success. If it's a success, it'll make financial sense to continue. Recurring characters who are not regulars aren't impossible to deal with. Asha and Gregor are very limited recurring roles rather than regulars, for example. The toughest part will be just keeping things open with actors in question, and it would not surprise me to see an actor change for Asha (as an example) between her appearance in the second season and in the fourth, for example, due to this sort of thing. Not the end of the world, IMO.

[Arionis]

Xythil,

You forgot the Freys. :smoking:

[Andhaira]

This will quite possibly be the most expensive thing HBO has done yet. And one of the reasons Carnivale was cancelled was because it was not fiscally feasible to continue.

[Frank Stark]

While I think Carnivale was initially well-received, their ratings plummeted season 2 (< 2 mil). No doubt, GoT will need to have a much larger viewership, I would think sustaining something around 5-6 million, in order to get 2nd and future season orders. A lot of DVD sets sold will also help.

Given the large cast already, I think it's inevitable that some characters name and given lines in the book will not make it to the TV show. Example: Oberyn's escort to KL just isn't going to be as detailed as it is in the books.

[Ran]

Andhaira,

No, this will not be the most expensive undertaking from HBO, not by a long shot. The Pacific runs about $15 million an episode. Rome ran about $8 million+ per episode in its first season. I figure HBO will be shooting for somewhere between $4 and $6 million per episode for GoT if it goes forward.

To put this in context, the brilliant Deadwood -- with a pretty large cast of recurring characters -- ran about $4.5 million an episode. I think Carnivale was $4 million an episode to start with, but HBO wanted budget cuts in light of failing ratings.

So long as the show is a success, there'll be money to see it continue.

[Silverius]

No, this will not be the most expensive undertaking from HBO, not by a long shot. The Pacific runs about $15 million an episode. Rome ran about $8 million+ per episode in its first season. I figure HBO will be shooting for somewhere between $4 and $6 million per episode for GoT if it goes forward.

The Pacific is a miniseries though, so the 15 million per episode will not continue very long. Rome lasted 2 seasons. If GoT runs one season it will possibly at least be in the same league. If however asoiaf runs the full 7 seasons I'd say it will be no contest.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets see the series get picked up first.

[Ran]

Oh, I suppose if you look at it in terms of multiple seasons, sure, I suppose. But I don't think HBO is going to think in terms of committing itself to airing a $50-$60 million dollar show for x seasons. They commit to a season at a time, and they'll pay for the next only if it makes financial sense vis-a-vis ratings, buzz, DVD sales, and so on.

Very much agreed, though, even one season is a gift. Best not count chickens before they're hatched,

[ogbebaba]

Very much agreed, though, even one season is a gift.

Getting to see the pilot would be a gift, getting one season would be a dream come true.

[Hassker]

The Pacific is a miniseries though, so the 15 million per episode will not continue very long. Rome lasted 2 seasons. If GoT runs one season it will possibly at least be in the same league. If however asoiaf runs the full 7 seasons I'd say it will be no contest.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets see the series get picked up first.

But if this series does take off the income from the first few series should be able to boost the budget up, we hope :) but yes Rome was awesome but the budget for ASOIAF shouldn't be that expensive, it might be to begin with, for say the feast at winterfell, however it would probably quiet down later on (the feast may cost a bit in order to grab attention early on in the series, like when art shops put the best stuff (and generally the most expensive stuff) in obvious places in the shop, just in the entrance and in the window... ya you get the idea

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Rome is (hopefully) a poor comparison to make, since they made some pretty glaring budget mistakes for its production. It should have cost significantly less IMO. And then they made another mistake when not taking into account dvd sales.

So long as HBO has learned its lesson, the same errors shouldn't be made this time round.

[TheHalfman]

As I posted in another thread, HBO sports being cut $15 million next year can certainly help.

[Ran]

Though someone in that article suggested the money could/would fund development on two shows. Not sure that the money is earmarked for a greenlit show.

[Brude]

The Pacific is a miniseries though, so the 15 million per episode will not continue very long. Rome lasted 2 seasons. If GoT runs one season it will possibly at least be in the same league. If however asoiaf runs the full 7 seasons I'd say it will be no contest.

The rumored budget I keep hearing for "The Pacific" is $200 million for the whole mini. It's said to be a 10 part series - I suppose it's quite possible it's $150 million and not $200 million. There's a lot of hype that goes into the listed budgets of movies, which are often not as high as they are reported to be publicly. A big budget gets press, also if you are trying to cut people out of net points on the back end, it's better to inflate your budget on paper, even if you really spent much less (pretty much how business gets done in Hollywood). Still, it supposedly was essentially paid for by the DVD sales alone for "Band of Brothers."

[Goldzor]

The rumored budget I keep hearing for "The Pacific" is $200 million for the whole mini. It's said to be a 10 part series - I suppose it's quite possible it's $150 million and not $200 million. There's a lot of hype that goes into the listed budgets of movies, which are often not as high as they are reported to be publicly. A big budget gets press, also if you are trying to cut people out of net points on the back end, it's better to inflate your budget on paper, even if you really spent much less (pretty much how business gets done in Hollywood). Still, it supposedly was essentially paid for by the DVD sales alone for "Band of Brothers."

Anyway, even taking into account the fact that it is supposedly paid by the Band of Brothers DVD sales, there are great chances that this series will be as successful as the BoB series. HBO didn't take many risks on that one.

[JWJ78]

Anyway, even taking into account the fact that it is supposedly paid by the Band of Brothers DVD sales, there are great chances that this series will be as successful as the BoB series. HBO didn't take many risks on that one.

Selling WWII to baby boomers isn't going to be as hard as selling GOT to the mainstream viewer.

I've been looking at numbers trying to compare the production of ASOIAF to LOTR. It took about 430 million for the LOTR trilogy. I figure you would need at least that same amount for the first 2 books in ASOIAF. I also think that looking at pages to running time that HBO should be able to pull out 12 episodes in the first season and cover both of the entire first 2 books- yes that's right. So that's more like 430/12= $36 million per episode (that's if you want the same quality as LOTR). Keep in mind LOTR extremely CGI heavy, ASOIAF should not need to spend as much (no POV character that needs 100% cgi work like Golem) , and the make-up -no roaming hordes of orcs and goblins in it running around the whole time either. Still cut that estimate in half, 18 million per episode. Maybe BBC splits the cost, that's 9 million.

I don't see HBO being able to support the show the way it would need.... especially since the story doesn't even have an ending yet. I agree, 2 seasons at most- which also works perfectly with the whole 2 books per season formula....just saying.

[Ran]

You cannot compare a high-end Hollywood film production to TV production. There's an order of magnitude in difference, in many cases. You should be comparing the proposed television show to other television shows.

There is no "2 books per season formula" -- I'm repeating this so that others looking at this thread don't get the idea that you're actually talking about something factual. It's one book, one season.

[Werthead]

Lord of the Rings was also only $270 million (without marketing) for the whole trilogy, so about $90 million per film, which was still considered somewhat on the low side back in 2001 for the scale and size of the films. According to rumour, James Cameron's Avatar has cost more than $300 million just by itself.

The BBC will likely only contribute 15% or so of the budget, like they did for Rome, and certainly not 50%.

I'm getting tired of seeing the same complaints being voiced over and over again without attention being paid to other factors. Deadwood was cancelled because the producer wanted to go and do something else. Rome could actually have carried on with the ratings it had, even at its extreme cost, but HBO bungled the accounting and panicked.

There is zero reason why Game of Thrones, which should definitely not be as expensive as Rome and maybe not even as expensive as Deadwood, cannot stay on the air as long as it attracts a decent audience.

[Brude]

HBO already knows how much they intend to spend on the show - this was no doubt worked out a good year or more ago. Budgets can change, inflate or contract, but whatever the budget is looking like right now is something that HBO is comfortable with, otherwise they would have canceled the pilot before it ever begins. Now, a realistic question is, "what happens if the show goes over budget?" Another might be, "what happens if there's a sudden drop in HBO's revenue."

These things can happen. Sometimes productions spiral out of control and then budgets become higher than a studio/network intended on sustaining, or maybe the channel takes a big financial hit that makes it hard to do something they originally thought they could. But at this stage, neither seems to be a problem. The show hasn't even started shooting yet, so unless pre-production is already really out of hand (no indication of that has been heard), then we're probably fine on budget. Right now, HBO has several bonafide hits on its hands, especially True Blood, so my educated guess is that current revenues are looking pretty decent (if I was less lazy I could look up their recent quarterlies, but I've got more important things to focus on right now).

These are the kinds of things that could scuttle GoT, but not likely the planned budget of the show, itself.

[Ninepenny King]

It comes down to this DVD and Blu RAy sales. Itunes and so forth. This is the kind of title that keeps selling 20 30 50 years from Now much like star wars. Dne right and HBO will have a huge seller on video for years to come wehter the ratings are good or not. While mainstream America may not be as sci fi crazy as some of us. Sci Fi fans do buy DVDs and 7 or 8 seasons of this Show will sell far into the future wether it makes a profit or has good rating at its realease. Even if they spend 50 million a season i can see them easily making this back.

im willing to bet each and everyone of us on this board will puchase the Dvd or blu ray assuming that its done right. and thats the rub isnt it. done right.