Westeros

There’s been a few items of note this last week, though on the whole it’s been a bit quieter. Here’s a round-up of some of the more recent news items that may be of interest of fans of the series:

• We’ve updated our gallery with some old images (photos from the first Belfast signing event where a number of actors appeared with George) and new (Arya sticking it [the table] with the pointy end!) that have come our way via HBO. An excellent photo, we think, though we don’t see an orange anywhere in the vicinity…
• It looks like Making Game of Thrones has been a big success for HBO. According to Jame Hibberd’s scoop, tonight will see the inaugural post on Inside True Blood, a production blog inspired by the Game of Thrones site’s popularity.
• Yesterday, representatives of a number of foreign broadcasters were in London to watch the first two episodes of Game of Thrones at a meeting with HBO’s international sales team. The intention behind the meeting was both to show the episodes to representatives of networks that had already purchased the rights to the show as well as networks that had not yet committed to purchasing it but were interested in doing so. No word yet as to what they thought of it, but we’re hoping to get some details soon. One of our big questions is whether these episodes were presented with Ramin Djawadi’s score. Could he have been selected back in January (well before it was actually announced) and scored two episodes in that time? It’s not unusual for temporary tracks to be used, so that seems likeliest, but if there was a full score in place, this should be a good sign for Djawadi having plenty of time to get the rest of the episodes readied.
• We had our first podcast interview! The Podcast of Ice and Fire crew kindly invited us on. Most of the discussion centered on our history in the fandom and the development of Westeros.org, but at around the 41:50 mark we do discuss the TV show a little bit. There are some spoilers here and there.
• From George, we’ve learned that Sophie Turner and her family have adopted Zunni, the Northern Inuit dog that played Lady. You can learn a bit more about the dog breed here.
• HBO Asia and HBO Latin America appear to have started, or are soon to start, airing Game of Thrones promotional materials. HBO Latin America covers most (but not all) of South America, Latin America, and the Caribbean, while HBO Asia covers something like a dozen Asian countries, so that’s a good sign for fans in their area of coverage.
• Various UK press have started putting out features or capsule articles about Game of Thrones. One of the more interesting (and somewhat spoilerish) came out of SFX Magazine and its latest issue, #206. There’s a brief rundown on the tidbits in the magazine, courtesy of Adam Whitehead at our “A Song of Ice and Fire” forum.
• There’s an interesting interview at Israel’s Haaretz newspaper website with HBO executives Richard Plepler and Michael Lombardo. Game of Thrones is mentioned a couple of times, with Pelper and Lombardo predicting that the show will garner similar amounts of interest to Boardwalk Empire, which hit 10.5 million viewers per week (across repeat airings and DVR). That’s a pretty remarkable figure—just about a third of HBO’s total subscriber base. Numbers like that for Game of Thrones would be quite amazing. Make sure to the read the whole thing, as it reveals some details of HBO’s financial and developmental plans, which could indirectly impact Game of Thrones in the long-term. The article also repeats a fact we’ve previously reported, that Israel’s Yes channel will be airing the series.