In the course of discussing the latest news out of HBO, that David Milch and Michael Mann were filming a pilot about the world of horse racing called Luck, James Poneiwozik provides some thoughts on HBO’s development strategies. He notes the fact that many of the upcoming or proposed series at HBO are connected to creators who’ve worked with them before: Milch created Deadwood and John from Cincinnati, Terence Winter was on The Sopranos before producing Boardwalk Empire, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg of Band of Brothers are back for The Pacific, Alan Ball was known for Six Feet Under before True Blood came along, and so on.
Poniewozik, at least, hopes to see more new creators, not just HBO veterans, creating shows in the future at the cable network. He wraps up by remarking that Game of Thrones, with showrunning newcomers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, certainly fits the bill if HBO picks it up, while remarking that the show will have more in common with a gritty show like Deadwood than True Blood despite both having genre fantasy elements.