The Hollywood Reporter

[The Imp's Advocate]

In an act of total, joyous redundancy... WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! I cannot WAIT to see this show on air. :cheers:

[TheHalfman]

In an act of total, joyous redundancy... WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! I cannot WAIT to see this show on air. :cheers:

Just wanted to officially post in this thread and say congrats to George. Plus, being TheHalfman, I have to post after my advocate.

[The Imp's Advocate]

Just wanted to officially post in this thread and say congrats to George. Plus, being TheHalfman I have to post after my advocate.

But of course. B)

[SpaceChampion]

Going by the page counts, with a 10-episode first season, ACOK should be 12 episodes, ASOS 14, and AFFC back to 10.

More likely ACOK and ASOS would be 13 each if expanded at all, with some of the story from ASOS put into ACOK.

Then again HBO doesn't seem to care how many minutes each episode is, could be anywhere from 44 to 90 (judging from their other series) so maybe other seasons will still be 10 episodes each, but 20%-40% more minutes on average if D&D manage to keep it in budget or season one is successful enough to get them more money from HBO.

WINTER IS COMING!!!!

[Prince Rhaegar Targaryen]

Going by the page counts, with a 10-episode first season, ACOK should be 12 episodes, ASOS 14, and AFFC back to 10.

Well, there was the idea floating around to somehow combine AFFC and ADWD for the TV series for dramaturgical reasons. Or, if you do 2 seasons for those 2 books, split them another way - not by characters but by timeline, say, so you dont get the problem of certain actors sitting around a year doing nothing

This leads to a whole different problem. If we say one season a year and if we say HBO follows it through/ratings are good enough.... GRRM has only left 4 years to finish ADWD *panics*, or if mentioned combination comes into play, that's THREE years only! And after that only another year for the next book....

Those not so serious thoughts aside, I'm really excited now, it's REALLY happening! *insert JUMPY smiley of your choice* Now I only have to get HBO to Germany, somehow.

[Ran]

Where's this caption of the photo everyone's referring to?

[Andrik the Unsmiling]

Late to the party, but this is fantastic news. I'm thoroughly looking forward to it! In fact, along with a lot of Martin fans I'd bet, I'll be ordering HBO just so i can watch this show, methinks, and I plan on letting the network know it, too.

[Arionis]

My flatmates are worried because I have been jumping up and down for an hour...

:cheers:

[Andhaira]

Good news to be sure. Now the great wait for the first season begins.

In fact I see us waiting quite a bit in the future; first for ADwD obviously, then for this, then once its over we wait word on whether the second season will be approved, then wait for it to be produced, then wait for TWoW, etc etc and so on and so forth.

Such is life for a ASOIAF fan. :)

[Budgie]

I just found out about this - awesome news!!

(I have to keep the celebrations down as I am at work)

[elmis]

Where's this caption of the photo everyone's referring to?

I haven't seen any official caption texts, so I assume people are going by what they posted at winter-is-coming.net

Snow drifts across the bodies of the fallen dead. Eight corpses lie frozen on the ground– men, women, and children, wearing heavy furs. The wind whips through their long hair.

At the edge of the clearing, WILL (20), a young ranger dressed all in black, surveys the grim scene from the back of his gelding. He gathers his reins and guides his horse south.

[Ran]

Ah, okay. I was going to say that HBO's publicity sheet with the image only captions it as the "Opening scene". But yes, it's right to conclude that it's Bronson Webb as Will.

[RicK]

Im hoping ur right about the BBC playing it at the same time, would be a shame to have to internet it. How amazing is the hands tourny episode gonna be?!!??!!??!

[Vacuum]

This is so awesome!

Congratulations to everyone involved, especially the young Stark kids! Judging by their twitter reactions, they're even more ecstatic than we are :)

I'm so relieved right now, would have been really ******* depressing if HBO had turned it down!

[Slick Mongoose]

Could someone post any actor reactions, if they have them? Can't get on twitter or most blogs from work.

Thanks.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Then again HBO doesn't seem to care how many minutes each episode is, could be anywhere from 44 to 90 (judging from their other series) so maybe other seasons will still be 10 episodes each, but 20%-40% more minutes on average if D&D manage to keep it in budget or season one is successful enough to get them more money from HBO.

Strictly speaking, I don't think it's true that HBO doesn't care how long an episode is. The ninety minute series finale of The Wire was the result of a special request from David Simon made well in advance. After all, if A Game of Thrones is aired before another hour-long drama (most likely they'd want to put it with True Blood, I imagine), than any overrun by AGOT could make it harder for people to watch True Blood on its first airing, and it might cause some casual fans to switch before the end of the show to catch another show on another network at ten o'clock.

I think the real issue for HBO, though, will be the number of days filming the sucker, since time filming means money to pay the crew. I don't know--Ran probably would--if the thirty weeks of filming schedule is still applicable, but if so that's already a metric shit ton (or shit-tonne) of time for an American TV show. By contrast, Mad Men or Caprica could film thirty episodes in that amount of time. Deadwood, itself an expensive show, took 15 to 16 days to complete an episode, which is still less than AGOT is proposed to have. So if that thirty week figure _is_ accurate, I gotta imagine that it's pretty close to the hard upper limit of what HBO is willing to pay for.

[Vuron]

This thread is certainly worthy of one of my few posts.

Congrats to everyone involved and let the waiting begin for the rest of us.

[naz]

This leads to a whole different problem. If we say one season a year and if we say HBO follows it through/ratings are good enough.... GRRM has only left 4 years to finish ADWD *panics*, or if mentioned combination comes into play, that's THREE years only! And after that only another year for the next book....

HBO seasons don't necessarily correspond to calendar years for their shows. For example, sometimes a year and a half or more would pass between seasons of The Sopranos, essentially to give the writers more time develop story arcs over the length of a whole season rather than working on it piecemeal.

Since HBO series tend to be strongly screenplay-driven - and I'd expect no less of this one - I would expect to see the usual lengthy gaps between seasons of ASOIAF.

Of course, I could be mistaken; has it ever been explicitly stated that seasons would strictly correspond to calendar years? I can't imagine HBO (or GRRM) would ever agree to something like that.

[Ran]

When we had the 30weeks rumor (which apparently was being batted around by people on set), it was with our understanding that it'd be twelve episodes. However, already before then there had been a report pinning the show down at 10, not 12, episodes, which George (at the time) batted down. It may be that the 10 episodes report was accurate and GRRM was at that time misinformed (as he notes, he's not that close to the production that he gets daily updates).

My guess is that at the time of filming the pilot, the rumor on set among extras and crew and so on was that it was going to run 12 episodes and "30 weeks" was something of a rounding up of a more reasonable figure (say, 25 weeks, closer to the mark for a show like Deadwood). Hard to say, though.

Hope to have more answers in ... about a month or so, give or take.

[Prince Rhaegar Targaryen]

Since HBO series tend to be strongly screenplay-driven - and I'd expect no less of this one - I would expect to see the usual lengthy gaps between seasons of ASOIAF.

In principle you're right, of course, but we've got the added problem of very young characters and their actors. If Bran is around 12ish now and we have an 18 months gap between seasons, he'd be about 15 in season three, same problem with Arya and Sansa ... and you never know how fast those kids grow/"change" in this age span...

Edit: and additionally, although you have to do the screenplays, sure, the principle story arcs on the other hand are all set.