UPDATE: There are some significant corrections to this story. We’ve learned that some of our report was based on a faulty transcript of the interview, and along the way we were informed of some additional details that may be of interest.
Brazilian media website POP has an interview with Vince Gerardis, founder of Grok! Studio and a co-producer on Game of Thrones who helped bring GRRM and Benioff & Weiss together, while he visits the Campus Party technology and media exhibition (this event, unfortunately, did not turn out entirely as planned—technical difficulties prevented GRRM from participating in a streamed web chat with attendees, for which Campus Party has issued sincere apologies).
There’s some fascinating bits of material, although some serious issues in translation and transcription appear to have left a lot lost in translation. We’ll correct the record below.
First, when asked about prequels like “The Hedge Knight”, the interview transcript is a bit unclear and makes it seem that Gerardis was speaking specifically about the Dunk & Egg novellas. In fact, he had a longer and a more general answer to the question that did not make it into the published piece. We’re told that it would be up to HBO to decide whether to pursue something like that, that HBO and he and others had discussed many possible ideas in relation to the series, but the fact is that making one series is challenging enough when its being done with so much care and skill and that it’d be unfair to push for more at this time. However, Gerardis certainly hopes that in a year or two, after the games come out and further seasons of the show have aired, that HBO might start thinking about making use of the full breadth of material that GRRM has produced.
And a spoiler here: When Gerardis was asked if there was anything he wished were different, his biggest concern was that George’s fans always want more and based on responses he’s seen on the internet he expects many of them will want even more of
. It’s so fantastic given the way George wrote it in his book, that Gerardis also wished much more of it could have been produced on the screen too. It appears in the 9th episode (“Blackwater”, also written by George) and it’s simply fantastic there, but GRRM had some difficult decisions to make about how to present the sequence because the show only has so many minutes available. The very specific length in minutes given in the interview report was a misunderstanding.