Franchise Of Thrones: Possible Spin Offs Speculation, News and Spoilers

[WindyNights]

17 minutes ago, GraceK said:

So do you think this series will actually have Azor Ahai and Nissa Nissa? Will they go all the way with the fantasy element you think?

Best way to go imo.

But yeah, I think AA will show up and the show will make you try to guess who AA is and make you fear for who Nissa Nissa could be.

[enoughcats]

What you need to know about me is: I'm old, I've been getting social security for nine years. 

I've enjoyed GOT, and I almost got hooked reading the books.  But...something made me wait for the next one, and then next one never came.  Right now, odds are I'll last long enough to see the end episodes of GOT next summer. (But friends' funerals are happening more often than I'd wish.)  

This news from GRRM brings me to acknowledge that IF he ever finishes this series, he's lost interest in writing the books to support it, or dance circles around the telecast story lines, or whatever.  

The suggestion that the next series will be a prequel ......ah, there's the rub.  I don't see how there can be supporting books.  I don't see the series being paid for six, seven, maybe nine years in advance, and without prepay, I don't see where the direction is going to come from to outline the action.

Even worse, I don't see enough stability in the entertainment venue delivery of series to guarantee the existence such a prequel past a couple of years.

At my (damned) age, I simply will avoid getting mentally invested in a show that will either outlive me or will probably leave me wondering WTF was the expected outcome. 

I want this to be a success, but right now, I have my doubts about it and I have a growing certainty that I'll wait until it's four years in or so (with an announced ending) before I binge watch it (or whatever we'll be calling it in six years, in 2024, a quarter of the way into the next century.

Grumpily,

EnoughCats

Edited June 9, 2018 by enoughcats

[scrb]

Yeah this is unrelated to the books probably.

They have to pay Martin for the rights and maybe he'll get invested in developing the story or maybe he won't.

[Eyes High]

The other thing to consider is that with the LOTR series in the works, the spinoff is going to have to bring something different to the table to get any traction. What prevents ASOIAF from being just warmed-over Tolkien is all the political scheming, intriguing, catfighting, familial dysfunction, and general bitchery (...which, to be fair, is just warmed-over Accursed Kings and I, Claudius, but leave that aside for now). Fans may claim that they're tuning in for the Starks, but it's the Lannisters that keep them around. (The dragons help, of course.) Heck, HBO's latest offering (Succession) seems like an obvious attempt to cash in on GOT fans' demonstrated appetite for bitchy family power struggles.

If HBO with their spinoff is just doing another version of the War for the Dawn (and done much more cheaply than GOT's version will be, since the spinoff won't have GOT's late-season budgets coming out of the gate as HBO reps have candidly admitted), based on the least interesting family of GOT, that sounds like a terrible idea. 

...Also, Goldman has written multiple terrible movies, so Jane Goldman as the main writer behind this series should reassure no one. 

[bubble sparkly]

I agree this spinoff series seems a bit meh. It could turn out to be better than it sounds, but it comes off as Diet GoT.

If there are 5 spinoff ideas I would think they would make pilots of 2 or 3 before committing to 1 series, so hopefully some of the others have a good script and HBO ponies up pilot $.

[WindyNights]

3 hours ago, Eyes High said:

The other thing to consider is that with the LOTR series in the works, the spinoff is going to have to bring something different to the table to get any traction. What prevents ASOIAF from being just warmed-over Tolkien is all the political scheming, intriguing, catfighting, familial dysfunction, and general bitchery (...which, to be fair, is just warmed-over Accursed Kings and I, Claudius, but leave that aside for now). Fans may claim that they're tuning in for the Starks, but it's the Lannisters that keep them around. (The dragons help, of course.) Heck, HBO's latest offering (Succession) seems like an obvious attempt to cash in on GOT fans' demonstrated appetite for bitchy family power struggles.

If HBO with their spinoff is just doing another version of the War for the Dawn (and done much more cheaply than GOT's version will be, since the spinoff won't have GOT's late-season budgets coming out of the gate as HBO reps have candidly admitted), based on the least interesting family of GOT, that sounds like a terrible idea. 

...Also, Goldman has written multiple terrible movies, so Jane Goldman as the main writer behind this series should reassure no one. 

Stardust, Kick-Ass and X-men First Class were good imo

[Happy Harpy]

D&D's track record wasn't what you can call stellar before GoT (I know, some would say it still isn't) so I'm willing to give Goldman the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, writers in film don't have the same power as on TV, it's the director, so it's possible that her work was better than it turned out to be on screen.

But I don't plan to watch the spin-off. I might change my mind depending on the cast list.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Happy Harpy

[Eyes High]

5 hours ago, bubble sparkly said:

I agree this spinoff series seems a bit meh. It could turn out to be better than it sounds, but it comes off as Diet GoT.

Yeah. GOT without any of the things that made GOT popular? What could possibly go wrong?

1 hour ago, Happy Harpy said:

D&D's track record wasn't what you can call stellar before GoT (I know, some would say it still isn't) 

 

Yes, but wasn’t the hope that they’d get someone better than D&D to avoid the problems that GOT ran into when the writers ran out of book? Goldman is not an improvement. She’s arguably worse, since she has more shitty movies to her name than Benioff did before GOT, and at least Benioff had written a well-received novel. And while it’s theoretically great to have a lady showrunner, I’ve been burned too many times by female showrunners who have merrily run their shows into the ground and written all manner of problematic or even misogynistic shit to applaud having a lady showrunner on general principle alone. 

Edited June 9, 2018 by Eyes High

[Pindrop]

1 hour ago, Eyes High said:

Yeah. GOT without any of the things that made GOT popular? What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, but wasn’t the hope that they’d get someone better than D&D to avoid the problems that GOT ran into when the writers ran out of book? Goldman is not an improvement. She’s arguably worse, since she has more shitty movies to her name than Benioff did before GOT, and at least Benioff had written a well-received novel. And while it’s theoretically great to have a lady showrunner, I’ve been burned too many times by female showrunners who have merrily run their shows into the ground and written all manner of problematic or even misogynistic shit to applaud having a lady showrunner on general principle alone. 

It is theoretically great to have the most competent showrunner regardless of gender. 

[ImpinAintEasy]

I’ll watch. But I doubt it will be well received by critics and non-fantasy fans.  I was hoping for more political intrigue. A series that heavily features the Children of the Forest is going to be a tough sell. Maybe it’ll surprise me, but at this point I have White Walker fatigue. 

[scrb]

14 minutes ago, ImpinAintEasy said:

I’ll watch. But I doubt it will be well received by critics and non-fantasy fans.  I was hoping for more political intrigue. A series that heavily features the Children of the Forest is going to be a tough sell. Maybe it’ll surprise me, but at this point I have White Walker fatigue. 

They're not going to feature the ancestors of the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens?

[tangerine95]

I'll give it a chance but I was really hoping for something about the Targs tbh.The children of the forest and the WW are the least interesting part to me.The age of heroes stuff sounds better tho.

[Happy Harpy]

7 hours ago, Eyes High said:

Yes, but wasn’t the hope that they’d get someone better than D&D to avoid the problems that GOT ran into when the writers ran out of book?

 

If they're lucky, they'll get someone as good as D&D; and I say it without irony.

They took a series of books more or less written to be impossible to adapt for TV, whose author seems more and more unable to finish because he lost himself in too many parallel plots and secondary characters; and not only they managed to structure it into eight seasons in spite of all the limitations of TV including a budget, but they made a huge mainstream success out of a very niche fantasy show while getting critical recognition for it.

I do have my issues with their writing, although I'll wait until the show is over to judge since GoT is a whole. But I recognize that they accomplished their mission as far as adaptations and I'd say script-doctoring go (from S6 on). Westworld is currently proving, imo, that it isn't such an easy feat.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Happy Harpy

[Maximum Taco]

11 hours ago, WindyNights said:

Stardust, Kick-Ass and X-men First Class were good imo

True, but all of these had a novel/graphic novel/years of comics to provide the story framework.

It's like you think Zack Snyder is a good film writer cause 300 turned out good, but then he puts out Sucker Punch and you're like "Oh, so that's what happens when he is left to his own devices"

Obviously A Song of Ice and Fire has a lot of lore and stories to draw upon but the Battle for the Dawn and the Long Night are purposefully left ambiguous by Martin in order to cement their mythic status. Any one making a series about it is gonna be working without a map, unless Martin decides to provide one. 

[Eyes High]

8 hours ago, Pindrop said:

It is theoretically great to have the most competent showrunner regardless of gender. 

GOT has two male showrunners and has been mostly written by men (the last lady writer on GOT left in Season 3, although she proceeded to write an Oscar-nominated screenplay so that decision paid off), and the show's treatment of female characters has not been stellar. In theory at least, having a lady in charge can improve things, although I'm not confident.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Eyes High

[WindyNights]

3 hours ago, scrb said:

They're not going to feature the ancestors of the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens?

Targaryens, no, unless you think the Amethyst Empress is the ancestor to the Valyrians. 

 

You'll see Stark, Lannisters and Boltons there though and even the ancestors to the Greyjoys, Tyrells, Tarlys and Baratheons.

Edited June 9, 2018 by WindyNights

[YaddaYadda]

Oh, will we find out more about the sword Dawn? I can see the show providing more lore about families we are waiting on in the books. 

I think Martin has a lot written about this anyway and he is part of all 5 projects. 

[Happy Harpy]

The report sounded as if all the other projects were put on hold until this pilot was made, and it surprised me. I thought they'd accelerate the process for at least one, so as not to put all their eggs in the same basket.

[scrb]

If they're at least going to try to have the same production values as GoT and WW, they're going to have to spend money for special FX and multiple international locations with a large crews attached to each.

Depending on whom they cast, the talent salaries may not be as much as it is now on GoT, at least at the start.  I guess they're probably not going to go for big stars but mid-level actors who haven't had a big series or movie yet.

Edited June 9, 2018 by scrb

[nikma]

I think the only advantage this show has over GoT right now, is similar to the advantage Fantastic Beasts has when compared to Harry Potter.

It will be written for TV, nothing will be cut, there will be no need to merge characters or storylines.

 

 

15 hours ago, Happy Harpy said:

They took a series of books more or less written to be impossible to adapt for TV, whose author seems more and more unable to finish because he lost himself in too many parallel plots and secondary characters; and not only they managed to structure it into eight seasons in spite of all the limitations of TV including a budget, but they made a huge mainstream success out of a very niche fantasy show while getting critical recognition for it.

I agree that people in this fandom very often are taking for granted what they did. Even without the books, GoT is on the rise after 7 seasons. That is extremly hard. Westworld is already struggling with ratings and they are only on Season 2. We saw what happened with TWD.

To create drama show that is bigger every year for 7 seasons is almost unparalleled in TV history. 

Edited June 10, 2018 by nikma

[Pindrop]

7 hours ago, nikma said:

I think the only advantage this show has over GoT right now, is similar to the advantage Fantastic Beasts has when compared to Harry Potter.

 

It will be written for TV, nothing will be cut, there will be no need to merge characters or storylines.

I agree that people in this fandom very often are taking for granted what they did. Even without the books, GoT is on the rise after 7 seasons. That is extremly hard. Westworld is already struggling with ratings and they are only on Season 2. We saw what happened with TWD.

To create drama show that is bigger every year for 7 seasons is almost unparalleled in TV history. 

Especially when you consider the incredibly tight timescales they have to work to and the size, complexity and geographical spread of the machine they are oiling. I am extremely critical of the plotting and writing in later seasons (especially the most recent season), but given all the constraints it is astonishing it is not a hell of a lot worse.  

[SimoneS]

Ugh, I hated the prequel concept and it sounds even worse now. However, there has got to be more to the show than they leaking right now. I still don't understand why they didn't just set the new show a thousand years in the future. 

[bubble sparkly]

I would have liked to see a Roberts Rebellion series. It would have required less budget because there’s no dragons or direwolves, and it probably would have worked nicely as a 5 season series.

The Targ conquest or DwD would have been great too, but I think budget was always going to be a problem for those ones.

I don’t have any interest in the children of the forest and any of that boring stuff about why WW were created in the first place. And after seeing Jon and co fight the WW for the last 5+ years it seems a bit redundant to follow a whole new group of people do the same thing. Making them Starks or Lannisters isn’t going to automatically make people care about these new (old) characters.

Edited June 10, 2018 by bubble sparkly

[SimoneS]

21 hours ago, Happy Harpy said:

If they're lucky, they'll get someone as good as D&D; and I say it without irony.

They took a series of books more or less written to be impossible to adapt for TV, whose author seems more and more unable to finish because he lost himself in too many parallel plots and secondary characters; and not only they managed to structure it into eight seasons in spite of all the limitations of TV including a budget, but they made a huge mainstream success out of a very niche fantasy show while getting critical recognition for it.

I do have my issues with their writing, although I'll wait until the show is over to judge since GoT is a whole. But I recognize that they accomplished their mission as far as adaptations and I'd say script-doctoring go (from S6 on). Westworld is currently proving, imo, that it isn't such an easy feat.

 

ITA. I think some fans get so caught in criticizing D&D that they fail to recognize that their successful tv adaptation of GoT was freaking amazing and a once in a lifetime phenomena. We likely won't see this kind of success in the sci fantasy genre repeated for a long time to come. We only have to look at how AMC tried and failed to reproduce TWD's success with its spin off, FTWD and they had some of the same creative team working on both shows. I have had my issues with D&D, mostly the misogyny, but I know that HBO will be lucky to get a quarter as much success with this prequel with a new showrunner/producer.

Edited June 10, 2018 by SimoneS

[GrailKing]

1 hour ago, SimoneS said:

just set the new show a thousand years in the future. 

This would be nice; but I'm not hating on what's put out so far.

[Cujoy]

I guess I'm just a total Pollyanna because I'm seeing the glass half full.  I'm assuming that the human and political aspects of GOT will all still be there along with the magical threats and mysteries.  If they aren't, it won't be worthy of the label "Game of Thrones".  We'll also have new takes on the ancient families we've been following since GRRM created them in the 90's.  We all have assumptions about Bran the Builder, Lan the Clever and Duran Godsgrief, because of the Houses they founded.  If this show is true to it's parent show, all those assumptions will be turned on their head.   Maybe Lan the Clever will be one of the protagonists and House Casterly will be the big bad.  Maybe Bran the Builder is drunkard everyone thinks is a lunatic going on about White Walkers.  

The big elephant in the room for any prequel series is that everyone knows what the outcome is.  We will know that somehow the end game will involve a final pact with the Children and building the Wall.  We'll know that the Stark, Lannister and Duran dynasties will be founded.

I'm also personally grateful that it's not a Targ-fest, as GRRM has that covered with all his detailed histories and side stories.  I'm also very relieved it isn't Robert's Rebellion, because that is covered adequately in the novels and the series.  I feel that ground is well tended, but the history of Westeros before the Targ's is much more wide open.  (That being said, I'm also totally open to a future series or movie or novel about the Doom of Valyria.)

Editing to add - Casting will be everything.  I wonder if once they start casting if we'll know who the lead characters will actually be.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Cujoy
to add another thought

[nikma]

I think the casting will start by the end of this year.

[SeanC]

2 hours ago, bubble sparkly said:

I would have liked to see a Roberts Rebellion series. It would have required less budget because there’s no dragons or direwolves, and it probably would have worked nicely as a 5 season series.

I don't know how you would get five seasons out of Robert's Rebellion.

It's also, at bottom, not a story that is geared to be its own thing.  It's backstory for the main series.  Most of the characters have one big moment, if that, and a lot of roles are especially marginal.  A lot of proposals for a rebellion series assume Lyanna would be a major character, for instance, but she spends the entire rebellion secreted away in a tower doing nothing, and we've already seen how it ends.

[YaddaYadda]

I don't think Martin would have wanted to do Robert's Rebellion just because it might give away too much from the books. He didn't want what happened to Summerhall to come out in TWoIaF.

[GrailKing]

1 hour ago, YaddaYadda said:

I don't think Martin would have wanted to do Robert's Rebellion just because it might give away too much from the books. He didn't want what happened to Summerhall to come out in TWoIaF.

Yeah, he basically said we will know everything about RR by the end of GOT.

[Happy Harpy]

2 hours ago, SeanC said:

I don't know how you would get five seasons out of Robert's Rebellion.

It's also, at bottom, not a story that is geared to be its own thing.  It's backstory for the main series.  Most of the characters have one big moment, if that, and a lot of roles are especially marginal.  A lot of proposals for a rebellion series assume Lyanna would be a major character, for instance, but she spends the entire rebellion secreted away in a tower doing nothing, and we've already seen how it ends.

I agree that Robert's Rebellion could only be a miniseries. They could get two seasons out of it if they included everything around it, including the upbringing of the numerous major and "main secondary" characters of GoT...and that's why it would be successful even if only decently managed, imo. It would bring a new light on characters we know and love or hate and allow parts of ASOIAF that couldn't be included to feature, enriching the TV universe. People might call it "fan service", for me it would be the only spin-off to actually have ties with GoT so the one that would seem less like a banking-on-the-name-only cash cow to me.

OTOH, and although it wouldn't be enough to make such a show last beyond those two seasons, I've always thought that something happened on the Lyanna/Rhaegar side and they didn't sit idle in Dorne of all places while the country was at war. It could be, of course, but I have the same out of character feeling as I had with Rhaegar = rapist.

[SeanC]

35 minutes ago, Happy Harpy said:

OTOH, and although it wouldn't be enough to make such a show last beyond those two seasons, I've always thought that something happened on the Lyanna/Rhaegar side and they didn't sit idle in Dorne of all places while the country was at war. It could be, of course, but I have the same out of character feeling as I had with Rhaegar = rapist.

It's hard to see what they could have been otherwise doing within the parameter that nobody of importance saw them in the whole period or knew where they were.

Edited June 10, 2018 by SeanC

[Happy Harpy]

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

It's hard to see what they could have been otherwise doing within the parameter that nobody of importance saw them in the whole period or knew where they were.

That's the point. Nobody saw them + nobody knew where they were + the timeline is murky + Dorne was a weird place to be found + it's out of character = it starts to make a lot. Rhaegar was obsessed with the prophecy, so trying to find a way to save Westeros from the AoTD (beyond making baby Jon) is the only thing imo that could keep him away from the war.

But well, if there's something to see there, it won't be covered by the spinoff.

[scrb]

I think HBO will go big.  They are seeing what happened with Solo.  They tried to milk Star Wars too much and these side stories aren't good enough to get all the Star Wars fans to watch.

So it has to be an expansive world with a lot of characters and exotic places and set pieces with special effects and large battles.  GoT season 7 raised the bar.  Whereas in earlier season, they could just allude to what happened in a big battle, by season 7, they were showing large flanks of soldiers, not to mention big naval battles.

The way HBO gave WW a huge budget from the start, I think they're going to bet on one of these sequels.  Now maybe the first one won't be the one with staying power.  They should concentrate on having one GoT show per year, rather than trying to stack these spinoffs one after the other so you end up with 20 or 30 episodes a year rather than the 10 that we got for most of GoT's run.

[bubble sparkly]

I do think HBO has to be careful with what they pick, because a GOT prequel is by no means a guaranteed hit.  The GOT brand name will definitely get your average show watcher to tune in for the first few episodes, but if it's boring and people aren't interested in what's going on then they will tune out pretty quickly.

I also wonder if HBO only has one shot to make a prequel successful.  If they pick a particular pilot and let it go to series and it ends up being a dud, will fans be willing to watch a different prequel a two a year or two later if HBO decide to dust off one of the old scripts?

One thing I find curious is how the world for this prequel will be depicted onscreen.  Will there still be castles and people in fancy clothes having banquets and wearing fine jewellery etc, or is it going to be more prehistoric with people living in humble little huts etc?

[Pindrop]

My thoughts on spin-offs:-

1) I am thoroughly bored of known IPs getting flogged to within an inch of their life by somnambulistic corporations.

2) If the most recent season of GOT had been the first season, I would not have bothered watching the second. It is really the subversion of tropes and intricate plotting of the books that translated so well, rather than the predictable (and often nonsensical) committee writing that came afterwards.

3) I am not particularly invested in the world of GOT outside of the current story arc.

I don’t know how many people feel the same way.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Pindrop

[nikma]

32 minutes ago, Pindrop said:

3) I am not particularly invested in the world of GOT outside of the current story arc.

I agree with this. But I'm open-minded. I will give them a chance. Just like I did with Fantastic Beats. I wouldn't say that I fall in love with that story, like I did with Harry Potter, but it was fine, and I'm excited for the next film. I'm not a child any more, so I'm not sure that I would fall in love with Harry Potter if I started with that story now. 

32 minutes ago, Pindrop said:

2) If the most recent season of GOT had been the first season, I would not have bothered watching the second.

Well, that isn't possible. S7 was fast paced first part of the climax. There is no way that the next show can start in that way. 

Would you bothered with the books if AFFC was the first one?

 

32 minutes ago, Pindrop said:

 

1) I am thoroughly bored of known IPs getting flogged to within an inch of their life by somnambulistic corporations.

Yeah. GoT was born out of pure inspiration from GRRM in 1993. He didn't create that story to make money, he didn't even know what the story would be. This spin off will be created by corporate decision. So I think there is no way that this next story won't feel "calculated" in a way. I think tha hardest part for GRRM and Jane Goldman will be to create characters that will resonate with fans, the same way GoT characters did. 

I expect next show to be good, but to also be soulless in a way. I don't have high expectations, so I think I will enoy it. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by nikma

[Pindrop]

19 minutes ago, nikma said:

Well, that isn't possible. S7 was fast paced first part of the climax. There is no way that the next show can start in that way. 

Would you bothered with the books if AFFC was the first one?

*Snip*

 

I sort of answered that question in my next sentence. The only issue I have with the pacing is that the movements of the characters were impossible, or vanishingly unlikely, given the world painstakingly developed over the previous seasons. The time jumps also had the effect of making a large and dangerous world feel small and safe. So the faster pacing was a mistake in my opinion, but a minor mistake. 

My problem was that the plotting and writing made no sense or was overly reliant on the tropes that had previously been so expertly subverted. What was Baelish' motivation? Why did Arya reveal her abilities so readily? Why did anyone travel north of the wall? Why was there a scene with Theon getting kicked in the (non-existent) balls? Why was the cave of convenience contrived into the plot? Why was Daenerys so schizophrenic the entire season? Why was Tyrion suddenly incompetent? Why was there so much plot armour? None of these things made sense other than to hit the next plot point. If these contrivances of plot, fan service, deus ex machina and plain bad writing existed in the first season, I would not have watched the second. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Pindrop

[nikma]

Well, in oder to discuss all these questions, I would have to go in off topic, so I'll stop now. 

[Pindrop]

All I will add is that I actually think Jane Goldman is a great choice given her repertoire. She has a history of involvement in movies that are character-centric, often subversive and often reinvigorating of tired franchises. That is a genuine glimmer of hope for me. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Pindrop

[nikma]

It will be hard for em to be invested in this new show, if they have Westworld schedule, and I think they will. 

 

New season every year seems to belong to the past, not only with GoT, but with many other shows. Which makes sense, since TV show are better than ever. 

[Danny Franks]

3 hours ago, Pindrop said:

3) I am not particularly invested in the world of GOT outside of the current story arc.

I have to say, having read The World of Ice and Fire, there are lots of stories outside the current arc that seem really interesting. Epic battles, sweeping romances, tragedy and triumph. All of the things you expect to see in the history of this sort of fantasy world. But that's what GRRM does best, in my view: He creates a world and comes up with a million and one ideas that could be amazing stories. I just don't think he's done a very good job of writing a long-form epic fantasy (not that it's easy to do. Even the greats got bogged down in detail and overly florid writing).

But picking just one of those eras and trying to create a full series out of it seems like something that will get spread very thin, very quickly. Even the Dunk & Egg short stories are very lightweight, and wouldn't translate well to a TV show. I think that taking The World of Ice and Fire, and creating an anthology show, perhaps of four feature-length episodes per season, each on a different part of Westeros' history, would be the best way to go.

 

2 hours ago, nikma said:

Yeah. GoT was born out of pure inspiration from GRRM in 1993.

Well... pure inspiration and a more than liberal borrowing from English history (and, I strongly suspect, from other novelists' work on English history).

[Happy Harpy]

54 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:

Well... pure inspiration and a more than liberal borrowing from English history (and, I strongly suspect, from other novelists' work on English history).

Besides English history, he quotes himself the French historical series The Accursed Kings as one of his inspirations. It's fascinating, by the way, to spot what he took and how he changed it/spinned it and made it something original. There used to be a thread about it.

Quote

But picking just one of those eras and trying to create a full series out of it seems like something that will get spread very thin, very quickly. Even the Dunk & Egg short stories are very lightweight, and wouldn't translate well to a TV show. I think that taking The World of Ice and Fire, and creating an anthology show, perhaps of four feature-length episodes per season, each on a different part of Westeros' history, would be the best way to go.

I'm not sure about this (but, disclaimer, not even an appealing cast would convince me to watch an anthology). Dunk & Egg are made to be lightweight, imo, that's why they're only short stories. The Westerosi history is long and certainly some periods would be rich enough in events to feed several seasons -moreover, the characters' storylines are a defining element of a show's length. For me, the sustainability will depend on one thing: Planning the whole story in advance. That's why GoT works and is getting stronger season after season, in my opinion. Unlike 99% of TV show that lose their direction and their audience along the way, GoT finds one because there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and watching it you feel that it's going somewhere.

Of course, they should keep some leeway because you never know what can happen (one storyline or character flopping, problem with actors etc.). But a big part of what makes GoT a success is mastering a story over the span of several seasons and the spinoff would be inspired, too, to follow this example. I agree about GRRM's strengths and weaknesses, so having him draw the main plot/general character storylines for the showrunner to shape it into a show could be a winning combination.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Happy Harpy

[nikma]

I don't think that anthology would work. There wouldn't be emotional investment in characters. 

[Cujoy]

I don't believe an anthology would work on TV either.  It is the ongoing plight of the characters that keeps people hooked on long format shows such as GOT.

I personally think that GOT is going to be "harvested" by Time Warner for more than just another TV series.   They know they have a property that has captured the Zeitgeist of it's era the way Star Trek captured the imagination in the 60's/early 70's, Star Wars in the late 70's/80's, and Harry Potter/LOTR in the '00s.  That kind of property doesn't die, but does get beaten until you wish it would. 

I think there will be a spin-off series on HBO, and wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that Time Warner wants to start a Big Summer movies franchise set in this world...  So, yeah.  Those other stories that are available out there such as Dunk & Egg or the Doom, or Dance of Dragons, are all probably fair game to be told on screen eventually in some format.

That's what I think's going to happen.

[Chiny11]

George provides more information about the spin-off:

 

George R. R. Martin opens up about the specific setting of the greenlit prequel, the other spin-offs & The Winds of Winter!

[Eyes High]

41 minutes ago, Chiny11 said:

George provides more information about the spin-off:

 

George R. R. Martin opens up about the specific setting of the greenlit prequel, the other spin-offs & The Winds of Winter!

GRRM thinking "The Long Night" would be a good title is another indication that his instincts for TV are not quite what he thinks they are.

I'm guessing the show will go the Star Trek route, where all the spinoffs had "Star Trek" in their titles, so the title will be "Game of Thrones: [Title]."

HBO is probably hoping to do with GOT what was done with Star Trek: TNG (1987-1994), Deep Space Nine (1993-1999), Voyager (1995-2001), and Enterprise (2001-2005). That's close to 20 years' worth of shows.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Eyes High

[scrb]

I think they want a series like GoT which will drive subscriptions and keep people subscribed for at least 2-3 months when a new season airs.

So no anthologies or miniseries.

But they run the risk of diluting the GoT world.

[Happy Harpy]

2 hours ago, Eyes High said:

I'm guessing the show will go the Star Trek route, where all the spinoffs had "Star Trek" in their titles, so the title will be "Game of Thrones: [Title]."

Game of Thrones: Bewbs and Dragons...

Still a better title than "The Long Night".

[Eyes High]

9 minutes ago, Happy Harpy said:

Game of Thrones: Bewbs and Dragons...

Still a better title than "The Long Night".

"Age of Heroes" sounds like a video game, so I can't say that it would be much of an improvement.

How about Game of Thrones: The Search for More Money? It would be accurate, at least.