Game of Thrones News/Discussion/Speculation TAG Ep Spoilers

[Madwelshboy]

HBO says yes to Game of Thrones series (plus 1st pic!)

It's official: HBO has given a green light to a 10-episode series based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series Game of Thrones and released the first image from the show, which you can view below. Production begins in June; no premiere date was announced.

Cast members include Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister, a woman of royal blood, Peter Dinklage as Cersei's brother Tyrion, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Cersei's twin, Jaime, Sean Bean as aristocrat Ned Stark, Jennifer Ehle as his wife, Catelyn Stark, and Mark Addy as King Robert.

The official announcement at:-
http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/hbo-say...medium=twitter

[Jumper_One]

woohoo

[Replicator Todd]

Well, I wont be able to watch it, I don't have HBO and don't plan on getting it.

[magictrick]

HBO says yes to Game of Thrones series (plus 1st pic!)

It's official: HBO has given a green light to a 10-episode series based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series Game of Thrones and released the first image from the show, which you can view below. Production begins in June; no premiere date was announced.

Cast members include Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister, a woman of royal blood, Peter Dinklage as Cersei's brother Tyrion, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Cersei's twin, Jaime, Sean Bean as aristocrat Ned Stark, Jennifer Ehle as his wife, Catelyn Stark, and Mark Addy as King Robert.

The official announcement at:-
http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/hbo-say...medium=twitter

Yes!! Awesome news. I am so excited for this series. Is there any word on when they expect it to be ready? I'm guessing next year.

Well, I wont be able to watch it, I don't have HBO and don't plan on getting it.

I'm pretty sure 3/4 of the people who watch HBO shows don't have HBO. Nowadays whether you have a channel or not isn't an issue anymore.

[Jumper_One]

Yes!! Awesome news. I am so excited for this series. Is there any word on when they expect it to be ready? I'm guessing next year.

IIRC spring 2011

[Replicator Todd]

I'm pretty sure 3/4 of the people who watch HBO shows don't have HBO. Nowadays whether you have a channel or not isn't an issue anymore.

Wha? Then how do people watch those shows?!

[magictrick]

IIRC spring 2011

I was expecting that. Such a long time, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Wha? Then how do people watch those shows?!

The internet Whether legally or illegally it is slowly but surely making cable/satellite tv obsolete. Any show that's on TV you can watch online a couple hours after it airs or at the latest the following day.

[chrono trigger]

im looking forward to this i have never read the books so i dont know what to expect which im actually happy about as i cant stand watching something on tv if i have read it as a book i always prefer the book

[magictrick]

im looking forward to this i have never read the books so i dont know what to expect which im actually happy about as i cant stand watching something on tv if i have read it as a book i always prefer the book

I would still recommend that you read the books as they are really great. Besides if you don't like the series you don't have to watch it right

[Exiled Master]

I suspect that the series will develop a case of Shonen Adaptation Delay Syndrome. What do Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, and Naruto have in common? Their anime forms catch up to the manga source material. Basically, I'm predicting that the AGOT hbo series will be caught up to the books before the book series is completed.

[Jumper_One]

I suspect that the series will develop a case of Shonen Adaptation Delay Syndrome. What do Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, and Naruto have in common? Their anime forms catch up to the manga source material. Basically, I'm predicting that the AGOT hbo series will be caught up to the books before the book series is completed.

Matt Roush of TV Guide Magazine recently answered a readers question regarding this

Question: You recently sounded enthusiastic about HBO green-lighting the George R.R. Martin Game of Thrones series. Speaking as someone who loves the books, I am very, very apprehensive. And not for the normal book-translations reasons ("It will never hold true", "They will get it all wrong" blah blah). I don't care about any of that. My worry is Martin himself. If you are not familiar with the books, here is the short version of my complaint. Game of Thrones was published in 1997, theoretically the first of seven books. Now, 13 years later, we have seen 3.5 of those books. The ".5" comes from the last book, which was half of what he intended; he split the "4th" because it got too long and bumped the series up to 8 predicted books. At the time he said that the "second half" was essentially written and would be out quickly, but that was in 2006, and nothing since. He used to update his blog on his progress, but nothing there since Jan. 2008 except for vague references about being stuck.

Martin is an amazingly talented and imaginative writer who started a fantastic series, but seems to have either lost interest, has bitten off more than he can chew, or just doesn't have time. (A parallel situation happened with the fantasy author Robert Jordan, who resolved it by dying before finishing.) Reading these books is quite an investment, but I've had to accept that I'm never going to get the payoff. Hence my worry about a TV series which I would otherwise be very excited about. It’s bad enough that we have to worry about the premature ending of any TV show for the normal reasons (low ratings, low profits, whatever). But to add to this the unreliability of the author and it really makes this sound like a bad thing to invest time into.—John

Matt Roush: A fair concern, and one I share since I have chosen not to start reading the fourth book until the fifth is published so I can have a more complete reading experience. I only read the original trilogy a few years ago, anticipating the sale to HBO, and was transfixed, but also awed by its scope and range of characters; I often found myself ending a chapter and paging forward to see how long it would be—sometimes 100 pages or more—before I’d be able to return to a specific set of characters or narrative point of view. It is a daunting task to adapt something like this for TV, especially given that the end of the story has yet to be written, and depending how much of the tale each season eats up, the TV show could eventually outpace the literary version. (Funny you mention the Robert Jordan series; I tried that one, too, in the immediate wake of the Lord of the Rings movies, and when it stalled about seven or eight books in, I just gave up. I much prefer the Martin series.) But all concerns aside, I’m so excited to see this epic fantasy come to life, and on a network that can handle its adult concerns and support its ambitions, that I’ll worry about these other matters if we’re lucky enough to get to that point. Bottom line, though, a memo to George R.R. Martin: Get a move on!

http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/ask-m...-lie-4373.html

also this is what Winter Is Coming had to say

Winter Is Coming: Although many fans have voiced their concern that the TV series will catch up to the books I just don’t see that happening. Martin is already very close to finishing ADWD which would give him at a minimum five years to finish books 6 and 7 (no more that seven have been planned, the reader asking the question has it wrong), even longer if HBO waits more than a year in between seasons, which they frequently do. Yes, I know ADWD will have taken him five years to complete but I don’t think the last two will pose quite as many problems for Martin as AFFC and ADWD did. I suspect (hope?) he will get them out in a somewhat more reasonable time frame, say, 3 years a piece. Besides, like Matt says, even if HBO does run into this problem we should consider it a positive thing because it means that the series is an unqualified success!

http://winter-is-coming.net/2010/03/...t-fan-concern/

[Jumper_One]

another update!

A Budget to be Reckoned With

When HBO announced that it was ordering a season of George R.R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones on March 2nd, the news was greeted with jubilation across fandom, on the internet and off. But the green light provided a host of new questions, such as when new cast members would be announced, when new production stills might be seen, and the like. And among them, a fairly significant question: what would the budget be?

We received answers pretty quickly. Nelson McCausland, a government minister, shared that the per-season budget was expected to be circa £30 million, equivalent to $45 million U.S. With a ten episode order, this would average at $4.5m an episode, a significant amount of money by most standards in the industry. On top of this, we had additional reports that the production was estimated to inject as much as £20m ($30m) into the economy, an interesting figure that has provided one of our own estimates regarding just what this budget means.

**snip**

So if you’re worried about the budget? Don’t be. HBO’s investing major funds into this, making the show its second-most expensive regular hour-long series on the air, and its third-most richly budgeted regular hour-long once the cheaper, foreign shooting location, the tax relief, and other production breaks are factored in.

http://www.westeros.org/GoT/Features/Entry/3988/

HBO's 'Game of Thrones': The 'Buffy' and 'Battlestar' connection

HBO has confirmed that Jane Espenson, a "Caprica" executive producer who has also penned scripts for "Dollhouse," "Battlestar Galactica," "Buffy" and a host of other cool shows, is one of the writers for the TV adaptation of "Game of Thrones," which was recently greenlit by HBO. Espenson will write the sixth episode of "Thrones'" first season as a freelancer.

Also writing single episodes of the drama: Bryan Cogman, a script coordinator for the show, who'll pen the fourth episode of the season, and George R.R. Martin himself. Martin, of course, wrote the book series on which "Game of Thrones" is based and has been closely involved in the project since it was announced. Martin is one of the show's executive producer and a former writer for TV show such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Twilight Zone."

The rest of the 10-episode first season of "Game of Thrones" will be written by David Benioff and Chicago's own D.B. Weiss, the team who scripted the pilot and have overseen the television adaptation from its inception.

**snip**

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....vision+blog%29

[magictrick]

The news regarding this series just keep getting better and better. Thanks for the updates!

[Jumper_One]

Fairley to replace Ehle in HBO's 'Thrones'

The cast of HBO's much buzzed about new fantasy series "Game of Thrones" is undergoing minor tweaking.

Irish actress Michelle Fairley has been tapped for a co-starring role on the adaptation of the George R.R. Martin book series.

**snip**

Fairley replaces Jennifer Ehle, who played the role in the pilot.

Production on the show's nine-episode order will begin in Belfast this June.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss created the series, whose pilot was directed by Thomas McCarthy.

Leading the large ensemble cast are Bean, Lena Headey, Mark Addy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage.

Fairley, who is little known in the U.S., will play Mrs. Granger in the final two "Harry Potter" movies.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...b1d96d3d3b5d32

[Jumper_One]

Game of Thrones teaser