Westeros

It’s one of those days again, it seems. Shortly after we shared news on the status of the Wild Cards TV adaptation, George R.R. Martin posted his own update. The first was an item we had forgotten to post an update about, namely that just after we revealed that Sandkings was in development at Netflix, by sheer coincidence Collider had learned in an interview that director Gore Verbinski (Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean) was set to direct it, with screenwriter Dennis Kelly (Utopia) writing the script for the high-budget film adaptation of the famous, award-winning science fiction horror story.

George goes on to fill in some details on some other projects, some of which touch on things we recently revealed.

Screenshot from the 1995 Outer Limits adaptation of “Sandkings”. The “castle” features the face of Dr. Simon Kress, played by Beau Bridges in the episode.

GRRM mentions The Ice Dragon still in development at the Warners Animation Group, and then reveals that Nnedi Okorfor’s Who Fears Death (affiliate link) adaptation (which he became attached to as executive producer as part of his overall deal with HBO) has had meetings with possible directors which have gone well. He mentions in brief other HBO projects he can’t discuss yet, but these are presumably the possible Game of Thrones prequels of various sorts that have been recently discussed, and perhaps the “More Than Human” project that Startling Inc. has in development with HBO. He also references something at AMC, which we’re guessing is the “Dark Winds at AMC” that Startling Inc.‘s page references, which we’re guessing is the Tony Hillerman project he noted he was involved in back in June.

Then he again mentions Friends Forever, one of a series of short films that he has been talking about at least as of 2015, with further references in 2016, 2019 where he stated he planned to adapt stories “by one of the most brilliant, quirky, and original writers our genre has ever produced”, and which are noted in the previously linked post on “Not a Blog”. Here he calls the writer in question “one of the most idiosyncratic writers our field has ever produced.” Very curious… but the terms George uses for this mystery writer reminds me of his good friend—a friend he has known, in a manner of speaking, forever—Howard Waldrop. In his introduction to the collection Howard Who? (Kindle affiliate link), GRRM describes him as one of the most unique voices the genre has ever seen, and one of the most original.

We have no inside knowledge, mind you, just our educated guess.

And then he turns to the prose work, and he sets out his present plan of action regarding A Song of Ice and Fire: