Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
News
Major news out of Hollywood has been the strike of the Writers Guild of America after the breakdown of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers; more details can be found here. In the wake of that, news of various productions started to come out regarding how they were dealing with the strike, with variations from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s showrunners completely stopping working on their production to House of the Dragon‘s Ryan Condal remaining on set but in a strictly non-writer capacity (this apparently has caused some umbrage among WGA members, who argue that “all” producing is “writing”, but to be honest this seems to fly in the face of their own Basic Agreement which acknowledges there are producers who are not subject to the Basic Agreement, e.g. non-writers can do production work, so why can’t writers do non-writing production work?). George R.R. Martin has now weighed in on the strike, and one particular sticking point—so-called “mini-rooms” which have upended what was once a long and successful means of developing and promoting writers—and in the course of it has laid out where various Hollywood projects stand (for those who don’t want to read it all: everything Hollywood-related is on hold for him, as he’s a proud WGA member and thoroughly in agreement with the strike).
To quote him:
“(Many of you will be wondering, rightfully, about the impact of the strike on my own shows. The second season of DARK WINDS wrapped several months ago. Post production has been completed on five of the six episodes, and will soon be done on the last. The show will likely air sometime this summer on AMC. No decision on the third season will be made until after the strike. Peacock has passed on WILD CARDS, alas. A pity. We will try to place it elsewhere, but not until the strike is over. The writer’s room on A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT has closed for the duration. Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines. Across the ocean, the second season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON started filming April 11 and will continue in London and Wales. The scripts for the eight s2 episodes were all finished months ago, long before the strike began, Every episode has gone through four or five drafts and numerous rounds of revisions, to address HBO notes, my notes, budget concerns, etc. There will be no further revisions. The writers have done their jobs; the rest is in the hands of the directors, cast and crew… and of course the dragons).”
Of course, The Winds of Winter is not subject to the WGA strike, and remains “priority number one”, though he mentions in passing that the WGA doesn’t impact “novels, short stories, or any other form of prose fiction, nor comic books and graphic novels, nor stage plays, nor the editing of collections and anthologies” before adding “I have on-going projects in all those areas, and that work continues unabated.” This is the first reference in a good while to Harrenhal, an A Song of Ice and Fire Broadway production announced new comics have been produced as late as well (including a graphic novel coming in October), showing that there’s a devoted audience for this long-running literary superhero universe. Given the popularity of shows like The Boys, fingers crossed that someone else gives Wild Cards a shot.