Westeros

We’re sad to share the news that actor Roy Dotrice, whose collaborations with George R.R. Martin began with Beauty and the Beast and continued right through providing his voice to the audiobook of The World of Ice and Fire, has passed away at the age of 94. Dotrice was well known on stage and screen, and genre fans will have seen him in a host of notable shows such as Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and (of course) as the pyromancer Hallyne in Game of Thrones.

Linda and I corresponded with him briefly, years ago, and remember him as a perfectly gracious, charming person who seemed amazed and pleased with the enthusiasm for his recordings of the novels. He’ll be much missed.

For those in the UK, I will be appearing at the QED conference devoted to discussions of skepticism, science, and rational thinking. Specifically, I’ve been invited to take part in a panel on October 15th titled “The Science of Game of Thrones”, inspired by the book of the same name by Helen Keen. Keen will be joining us, as well as a number of other panelists. Here’s the full details from the conference site:

Tickets for the Game of Thrones live concert, which is now coming to Europe, are becoming available… including in Sweden, where Ramin Djawadi will lead the spectacular concert in Stockholm’s Ericsson Globe on May 31st.

In connection to this, we’re also very pleased to announce that in collaboration with Live Nation, we’ve got two pairs of tickets to give away! Read the press release for the event below, and we’ll follow up with how to win!

Thanks to an article over at Variety discussing the minutae of high-end television budgets, a new detail regarding the budget for the final six episodes of Game of Thrones is making the rounds. According to the piece, HBO is expecting to spend $15 million per episode, which would be the highest amount spent per-episode on the series to date.

The article goes on to talk about why shows are costing so much, as well as raising the question as to whether a $20 million-per-episode series may eventually happen. This is not really a new situation, though, if one looks at limited series. Most recently, The Pacific from HBO cost some $20 million per episode across its 10 episodes; adjusting for inflation, in fact the price tag is closer to $22.5 million per episode. That was very much an “event” series, from the same people who had put together the exceptional Band of Brothers, but suffice it to say that if HBO was willing to countenance then, it should be no surprise they’re willing to countenance it now.

If anything, the $15 million price tag that Variety talks about feels a little low, since rumors have pegged season 6 episodes at averaging $10 million, while cinematographer Robert McLachlan implied that season 7 had a similar overall budget—i.e., approximately $14.28 million per episode on average. A 5% increase in budget doesn’t seem that noteworthy. On the other hand, it’s always possible that the reporting is mistaken, or that the particular numbers thrown about are merely very conservative estimates. We would not be surprised to hear of a much higher figure after filming is underway or wraps.

Straight from HBO, the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience will be hitting Europe with numerous dates from May to June, and then a resumption of North American touring in September and October. All concerts are set to be overseen personally by award-winning composer Ramin Djawadi. See below for more information and dates:

From a report on EW, HBO has revealed the directors of the final six episodes of Game of Thrones. They’re all familiar names: Miguel Sapochnik, David Nutter, and David Benioff & D.B. Weiss. The showrunners, who are also writing four of the final six episodes, will be directing the finale.

James Hibberd goes into more detail, and in particular provides speculation as to how episodes will be divyed up, with rumors suggesting Sapochnik may direct three of the episodes.

HBO has just announced that long-time series writer and producer Bryan Cogman is the fifth writer behind on the successors. EW’s James Hibberd has what details there are to be had, but understandably HBO are tight-lipped about just what ideas are being developed. A couple of months ago, Linda and I recorded videos discussing some of the areas of Martin’s world and its history that might be of interest.

Of all the writers involved in developing these successor shows, Cogman is unique in being the only one to have worked on the series, and has done so from the start—even back to the original pilot, when he was assistant to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

HBO has announced that you can now preorder the Season 7 Blu-ray and DVD, and revealed a bunch of new details while also sharing an exclusive clip featuring Harry Lloyd (Viserys) narrating the history of House Targaryen from the Fall of Valyria to Aegon the Conqueror turning his eyes to the Seven Kingdoms. Nice art, I have to say!

Here’s the full list of detaisl from HBO:

After some down time, HBO’s arrangement with global events provider GES—announced in July—has come to fruition with the announcement of the first date for the re-vamped, expanded exhibition. From October 28th, a “limited engagement” (no precise details, but the exhibition website allows tickets to be ordered as far in advance as January 7) will be taking place in Barcelona’s Museu MarÃ%ADtim.

Other locations and dates will be announced in the weeks and months to come. One big difference from prior exhibitions: there’ll be a fee for entry, but this fits with the idea that it’s also on a much larger scale than previous exhibitions.

Full press release below:

News spread last night of a talk Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, held at Moravian College. According to reports, Bloys indicated that in a bid to mitigate the leaks that have plagued the show the last few seasons, the producers had decided to write and film multiple endings to attempt to hide the real ending. According to the report at EW, the showrunners have previously indicated that they’re going to new heights to attempt to prevent leaks for the final season, and this seems to be just one of a number of techniques they’ll be using.

Alternate endings created to prevent leaks is not new to television, with shows as varied as 24, Lost, The Simpsons, and fellow HBO show Sex and the City having used the stratagem. As to whether these efforts will be successful when it comes to Game of Thrones? Only time will tell.

Last week, Linda provided a review of the very handsome Stark fountain pen from Italian pen maker Montegrappa. That pen was one we bought ourselves, as we do admire fountain pens, but shortly after we did our review we were pleasantly surprised to receive a package straight from HBO: Montegrappa's Targaryen ballpoint pen. Naturally, we just had to review it, and I provide the honors this time around:

Yes, my handwriting is nothing to write home about! But I think that should give those interested in a pen like this a sense of what they're getting. All in all, the Montegrappa series of pens has been one of the unique and interesting Game of Thrones-licensed products. The pens are widely available, especially at HBO's own store:

We've posted a video review of one of Montegrappa's officially-licensed Game of Thrones pens. Montegrappa is a famous name in Italy, a maker of fine pens and other luxury items, and their licensing Game of Thrones has led to four (now five) beautiful pens.

The Stark pen featured above -- a fountain pen with a medium nib; other options include fine and broad nibs, or rollerball or ballpoint versions -- is one of the initial four pens which each take their inspiration from a different Great House. The fifth, and newest pen, is a high-end limited edition in solid sterling silver or even 18 karat gold, but those run anywhere from 3,200 to 52,000(!) euros.

This pen came to us by way of Amazon.com, via a Madrid-based authorized dealer named Iguana Sell (noting them down because they did an amazing job with prompt shipping and really good packaging), but you'll find most of the varieties of the pens available from a number of sellers besides them, some at even lower prices:

Of course, the HBO Store (both the US and EU varieties) also carries the pens as well, and sometimes you'll find special deals on all their Game of Thrones products.

We’ve been referring to this for a couple of months as something in the works, but Linda and I are now very happy to join in making the official announcement of the launch of Martin Studies International Network.

What’s that, you may ask? See the press release below to learn more:

The episode guide for “The Dragon and the Wolf” is now mostly up-to-date, including Linda’s video review of the episode (which we’ll embed below) as well as a book-to-screen consideration trying to piece out what’s inspired by the novels to date, what’s likely to happen in future novels, and what’s definitely not something that fits within the scopes of the books.

As Linda says in her video, there may or may not be a Season 7 overview video from her—stay tuned!

HBO has released details for the final episode of Game of Thrones season 7: “The Dragon and the Wolf”—good title—will have a 79 minute, 43 second running time, making it the longest episode of the series to date. There are rumors that season 8’s episodes will potentially run even longer as a matter of course, but we’ll have to wait and see if that holds true.

“The Dragon and the Wolf” airs at 9PM on August 27th.