It seemed likely the rough cut screening Michael Lombardo spoke of at TCA two weeks ago has taken place by now, and we have as-yet unconfirmed reports that the rough cut was possibly screened at HBO’s New York offices. One person who saw some parts of the footage in HBO’s editorial offices has stated that it looked very good, and the show seemed to have terrific production values and good acting.
However, we’ve since had suggestions sent our way that the rough cut has not been completed, so that no screening would have taken place.
Following up Thursday’s post, GRRM confirms that the snowy weather was inspiring the next day, and that he’s done some good work on A Dance with Dragons that he’s happy with. It seems likely that he switched to writing Jon Snow, as he hinted in the earlier post. Also, in regards to the earlier post, in comments GRRM declined to provide an estimate of when he’d be done, as he admits that he has been very bad at guessing such things so far.
GRRM has provided an update on his current work on the much-anticipated A Dance with Dragons. The “Meereenese knot” has been a central difficulty, and it seems like Martin is making some serious headway, with a completed chapter (although one which has has completed four times before) and switching to a new POV (meaning the addition of a new POV?) to help provide an insider’s perspective to some of the events that make up the “knot”.
Valyrian Steel wants fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire to let them know what replica weapon they should produce next. With Longclaw and Needle already produced and Ice entering production soon, this is a great opportunity for fans to weigh in. Their original plans were to produce a replica of Khal Drogo’s arakh.
What other weapons are possible? Jaime’s gold-plated sword, Robert’s warhammer, the greatsword Dawn, the assassin’s Valyrian steel dagger, or the sword of the Targaryen kings, Blackfyre…. Lots of possibilities, if you think about it.
Daniel Abraham follows up on his previous post discussing collaborating on Wild Cards with a post about his other collaborations, particularly his collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois on the SF novella and novel, Shadow Twin.
It’s a busy time for Harry Lloyd, cast as Viserys Targaryen in HBO’s pilot, as he gives interviews to publicize his role in the play, The Little Dog Laughed. In his latest interview, he makes an interesting reference to his audition for the pilot:
‘Lloyd may be seen on screens more often if the American pilot he recently filmed is picked up. Game Of Thrones is based on fantasy author George RR Martin’s series A Song Of Ice And Fire and sees Lloyd play the Beggar King Viserys Targaryen opposite a host of British acting talent.
He describes the process of getting the part as: “One of those auditions which you have every now and again for some big American TV series and you’re like ‘Great, thanks.’ You go in and put yourself on tape and send it off and you’ll never hear about it. So I went in and slightly took the p**s with this character, had a bit of fun with it. They loved it.”’
“Took the p**s”? Certainly interesting. On the one hand, one could be very apprehensive that the casting director and producers loved an over-the-top, camp take on Viserys. On the other, it may just be that what Harry Lloyd considers “slightly [taking] the p**s” amounts to an exciting interpretation of the character. Only time (and HBO) will tell if we get to find out.
Ian Tregillis provides more insight into the work needed to create a new Wild Cards book, following up on Daniel Abraham’s first post on the subject. It’s a further interesting look into the brainchild of George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Consortium, who’ve shaped what’s arguably the most successful, original shared-world anthology series around.
The Telegraph has a brief article which features a quote from Harry Lloyd. When mentioning that Game of Thrones is “next” for him, Tim Walker goes on to write:
‘An American accent will not required. “It’s an unspoken rule that if you’re American, you can’t hold a sword,” the amiable actor [Harry Lloyd] tells me. “It’ll be like Lord of the Rings. Everyone will do a non-accent. It will be great fun.’
The L.A. times has an interview with Will Scheffer, co-creator of HBO’s original drama series, Big Love, which started airing its fourth season recently. Reading it, I found that some of the topics discussed have some potential implications for how similar issues will be handled for Game of Thrones if HBO’s orders a season. Salient quotes below:
Dark Sword Miniatures has put up pictures of several of the latest wave of miniatures, painted by their in-house artists. GRRM already shared Brienne of Tarth, but we now also have Robb Stark, Arya Stark, and Ghost painted up. All the figures are painted by the award-winning Marike Reimer, who’s done a fabulous job with Tom Meier‘s and Dave Summers’ sculpts.
The miniatures (unassembled and unpainted) can be purchased via Dark Sword’s online store.
Jason Momoa has been cast as Conan the Barbarian in the upcoming film set to begin shooting in March, according to Nikke Finke of Deadline Hollywood. This production should pose no difficulties for Momoa’s role as Khal Drogo should HBO order a season of Game of Thrones, as the production is not likely to start up shooting earlier than April or May of this year, and scenes set in the Dothraki Sea may well be scheduled for later in the production.
Tor have given the Fantasy Hotlist an exclusive excerpt of “The Mystery Knight”, the third novella in the Dunk & Egg stories set in the past of the Seven Kingdoms. The story will be published in the Warriors anthology, due March 16th.
Robert Stromberg, the visual effects supervisor for the Game of Thrones pilot, appears very briefly in this fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the creation of James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar. Stromberg served as production designer on the film, and as the film awards season has started his work has been getting serious attention, with a win at the Critic’s Choice Awards and a nomination in the Art Director’s Guild awards (along with Rick Carter) to kick it off.
Stromberg speaks at the 4:15 mark in this video. Blink and you’ll miss it:
Avatar Press has posted its April solicitations, which clarifies some of the issues we noted when reporting the initial solicitation for the first issue in March. Covers will be provided by Felipe Massafera, while Rafa Lopez will provide the interior art. Issue #2 will come in three variants, one of them being an incentive cover. Full solicitation text below:
Dark Sword Miniatures now have the latest wave of George R.R. Martin Masterworks miniatures available for sale on their online store. The figures include Catelyn, Sansa, Sansa with snow castle, Arya, Brienne of Tarth, and Robb all sculpted by Tom Meier. It also includes Jon Snow’s direwolf, Ghost, sculpted by Dave Summers.
HBO has added a new trademark class to HBO, to follow up on the several ranges of merchandise it’s previously applied for. This time around, the trademark—filed January 13th—covers, “Resin figurines; key fobs not of metal; non-metal key chains and key rings; mirrors; picture frames; pillows; plastic sculptures; slumber bags; sleeping bags; toy chests; household goods; all the aforementioned goods featuring content from or related to a television series.” Like the Class 021 trademark filing renewed in December, this one is specifically for “Game of Thrones”, as opposed to the earliest filings which were for “A Game of Thrones”.
General opinion is such trademark activity is standard procedure at HBO these days, and should not be taken to imply that HBO’s definitely intending to go forward with a series based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Excited by his beloved N.Y. Jets’ survival to the AFC Champion, GRRM has placed all the books on his Signed Books sale page on sale, with $5 off all hardcovers, $3 off of all paperbacks, and a deep discount—down to $15, plus book rate shipping—on Windhaven. The only hitch? Your check or Paypal memo must have “LET’S GO JETS” written on it.
The sale lasts until the Jets lose or, if they happen to win the Superbowl, the first day of the NFL draft. See George R.R. Martin’s Not a Blog for more information. If you’re only familiar with the A Song of Ice and Fire series, now’s not a bad time to try some of his previous work. We particularly recommend his wonderfully atmospheric vampire novel, Fevre Dream, soon to be adapted to a comic book miniseries by Avatar Press.
The Daily Record writes about director Tom McCarthy—who directed the pilot for HBO’s Game of Thrones—and his next project, a high school wrestling film titled Win Win which he has written. One aspect covered in some detail in the article is that McCarthy has stated that he’s looking to cast “real people”, and that the lead for the film may well be someone with no previous acting experience. At the end of the article, McCarthy is noted as indicating that, “he had a positive experience casting ‘real people’ when filming the series The Game of Thrones for HBO in England.”
Erroneous title and locations details aside, it’s interesting that McCarthy cites Game of Thrones as a positive experience in regard to casting “real people”. The article does also note that the Win Win shoot will run about seven weeks, from early March into April, so it’s not impossible that if the series is picked up, McCarthy may return to direct one or more additional episodes.
Thanks to maxlongstreet at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum for the pointer.
Daniel Abraham, one of the contributors to George R.R. Martin‘s shared-world Wild Cards series, offers an insider’s look at collaborative process involved in producing one of the books. Suicide Kings, the final book in the latest triad of Wild Cards novels, was published in December. Fort Freak will be the next entry in the series.
Over at Massive Online Gamer, the good folk at the magazine have put together a list of the top ten licensed properties they’d like to see given the MMO treatment. Among them? HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series. An interesting idea, though we’re not sure how they could really capture the qualities that make the series so special—family dynamics, dynastic politics, and the brutality of war—within the typical MMO dungeon-crawl model. That said, they make the mistake of claiming the show will air in 2010. We now know that March-April 2011 is the likeliest date.
Over at remarks at the TCA press tour concerning the series. Specifically: “The fantasy is so incidental, it has a very adult tone… You forget it’s fantasy while you’re watching it, and that’s what I love about it.” The writer fears this is a sign of genre self-hatred which could mean bad things about the adaption, but a lively conversation is sparked in the comments pointing out that Game of Thrones in particular, and the series in general, is markedly low in the fantasy quotient to start with, with only a gradual increase.
Also, they point out one of the very next paragraph: “The pilot will employ some CGI, for backgrounds, the story’s ‘direwolves’(a mixture of real animals and CGI) and dragon eggs.’ Emphasis ours. ;) Although, actually, it’s rather curious why the dragon eggs would need CGI rather than using practical effects props…
As we like to point out here, we’ve seen many, many people start their praise for the series with, “I don’t usually like fantasy…” It’s that quality that could make Game of Thrones a hit on HBO, because it’s a series that appeals to a broader audience than just hard-core fantasy readers.
George R.R. Martin posts about getting his own copies of Valyrian Steel‘s replica of Needle, Arya Stark’s sword patterned after the fashion of the swords that the bravos of the Free Cities use. In describing it, he points out that they are a limited edition of 2500. Valyrian Steel has also made Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw, already available for sale. Next up? Ice, the design of which they’ve previewed.
A nice catch from Daniel, a reader at Winter is Coming, who noted the sale of the litter of Siberian Husky puppies which were used for the Stark children’s direwolf pups. The only thing I can add to that is that from what I was told, two puppies were quite pale/white, and were named Milk and Cream; you can guess which of the pups they represented. The last of the litter appears to have sold six days ago. The photo of the puppy with a link to the original information is below.
While we normally eschew rumors, a commenter named Andrew notes that the studio manager at the Paint Hall has informed him that HBO had been asking about provisionally arranging a five year lease on two of the four “cells” in which the huge building is divided. Each cell is 16,000 square feet (1,487 square meters) in size. Andrew also notes that the pilot sets are presently still standing, and he speculates that the five year deal would be so they could leave sets standing from season to season.
We share this unverified item since it’s quite typical for productions to take long-term leases even in cases where a show may not go beyond a season, since the potential savings if the show is a success could make any penalties if the show comes to an end early seem like a reasonable choice. Showtime’s The Tudors had a similar lease with
Ardmore studios
outside of Dublin, from what we’ve read. On the other hand, at least one past HBO series—Oz—only leased its shooting location on a year-to-year basis, apparently because of uncertainty that it would ever get a following season.Finally, we should note that five years is a fairly standard figure for this sort of production lease. It does not imply that HBO intends either to go five seasons, or to only go five seasons if the show lasts so long.
Michael Lombardo, head of programming at HBO, gave some comments concerning their pilot for George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones after HBO’s panels closed at the TCA press tour and the news was looking very good indeed! Matt Roush of TV Guide was the first to report via Twitter that the executives will see a rough cut in two weeks, and that the dailies looked good. He also confirmed what we’ve previously reported, that more scripts had been written by the Benioff and Weiss writing team.
Then James Hibberd followed up with a detailed account of the remarks from Lombardo. Some salient quotes follow:
Fantasy Flight Games has announced details for the fourth chapter pack in the current Defenders of the North series, The Wildling Horde. It’s a 40 card pack offering twenty brand new cards to use in the game, and will be made available this spring.
Continuing his fantastic series of colorful, whimsical maps inspired by the setting, Ice and Fire forum denizen Other-in-Law has added two new maps to his gallery: The stormlands and the jaw-droppingly detailed map of the Reach. Though speculative, the heraldry of the maps draws from the descriptions provided by GRRM for Westeros.org’s heraldry page as well as those described in the books.
These are some of the neatest bits of fan art we’ve ever seen for the series.
The upcoming Warriors cross-genre anthology (US, UK), co-edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, is slated for a March 16th release according to the publisher’s site . Unlike the recently delivered Songs of Love and Death, among the bestselling authors contibuting a story is GRRM himself, the third in his series of “Dunk & Egg” prequels.
“The Mystery Knight” is described as a long novella, and GRRM’s read an excerpt from it a conventions revealing that the story is one full of intrigue with a wedding tourney serving as background. Larry of the Read and Find Out forum has recently had a chance to read it, and shares some remarks here and indicating that he quite enjoyed it.
According to ICV2, three GRRM-related roleplaying game titles will be published by Green Ronin in the first three months of the year: the A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide in February, the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Pocket Edition in March, and the Wild Cards: Aces & Jokers sourcebook in March.
GRRM has posted on “Not a Blog” that he and co-editor Gardner Dozois have delivered the manuscript for Songs of Love and Death Delivered, a cross-genre themed anthology focused on doomed romances, to their publisher. No publication date yet set. He provides a list of contributors—among them Jim Butcher, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, Jacqueline Carey, Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, and Diana Gabaldon—and the titles of their stories. The full list is below:
It looks like Wild Cards: Hard Call, the original Wild Cards comic book written by Daniel Abraham but left with its last issue in limbo following issues with the publisher, is back on track according to Daniel. At the A Song of Ice and Fire fan forum, he remarks that he’s seen the first four pages of pencilled art from Eric Battle (whom he praises) just this last week thanks to Dynamite Press paying him so that he could complete the work.
It’s too early to know when the comic will be completed and available for publication, but Daniel says that Dynamite seems committed to publishing it and eventually collecting all six issues in graphic novel form.
According to reports, Avatar’s long-awaited adaption of George R.R. Martin’s excellent vampire horror novel, Fevre Dream (US, UK), has finally be solicited in the January edition of previews. This means the first issue will be published in March, but those interested can go to their local comic book shops to request the book be ordered. Over at the Forbidden Planet website, they have a small image of what appears to be the wraparound variant cover and the regular cover which seems to be by artist Rafa Lopez. They also have a description of the book, and provide the order codes: JAN100753 and JAN100754.
The novel has been adapted by author Daniel Abraham, who has previously written the Wild Cards: Hard Call miniseries, and it looks like artist Felipe Massafera is handling the art chores. Massafera’s previous works includes Warren Ellis’s Supergod and Ignition City and Alan Moore’s Light of Thy Countenance.
The young actress Sophie Turner, cast in the role of Sansa Stark in HBO’s pilot of Game of Thrones, has picked up a catchphrase current among the “Brotherhoods without Banners” fan group and the Song of Ice and Fire forum: “Blame Pod”.
The story of how Pod (also known as the Devilbunny) became the source of all mishaps is too long to relate here, but it seems that Ms. Turner (who recently joined Twitter) believes the phrase is applicable to the production and intends to spread it among the other actors. She cites Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark) as two of her fellow cast members she’s passing it on to. We look forward to hearing the phrase from the rest of the cast and crew in due time, as there’s always an appropriate moment in which to blame Pod.
This Is London’s lifestyle section has an interview with Harry Lloyd, which mentions his role as Viserys Targaryen in HBO’s pilot for Game of Thrones. In the course of the article, which also covers his theatrical work and his role as Will Scarlett in the BBC’s new Robin Hood series, he mentions that the HBO production has heightened his profile and he has begun fielding calls from American agents.
Random House (the parent of Bantam) has a trade publication (note: large PDF file) on-line, looking forward to their plans for this year. Down at page page 107 is an entry for the 2011 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, illustrated by John Picacio. It’s given a $16 price point ($19 in Canada), which is the first time we’ve had a recommended retailer price.
It’s projected that this will only be the first such calendar via Bantam, as they cite the popularity of the Tolkien calendars. Notably, they matter-of-factly state that if the HBO production goes forward, this will have a positive impact on the sales of the series as well as on related merchandise.Finally, they have adjusted their sales figures upwards for the series. Previously, the books were said to have had 2.2 million copies in print, and now it’s pegged at over 3.5 million.
Many thanks to Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone for pointing this document (which has other interesting things to say about out.
At his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin recommends two workshops for aspiring or neophyte genre authors: Clarion and Taos Toolbox. Clarion is a particularly famous, venerable workshop, with many, many professional authors of note having passed through their doors as noted at the Wikipedia article.
In the course of discussing the latest news out of HBO, that David Milch and Michael Mann were filming a pilot about the world of horse racing called Luck, James Poneiwozik provides some thoughts on HBO’s development strategies. He notes the fact that many of the upcoming or proposed series at HBO are connected to creators who’ve worked with them before: Milch created Deadwood and John from Cincinnati, Terence Winter was on The Sopranos before producing Boardwalk Empire, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg of Band of Brothers are back for The Pacific, Alan Ball was known for Six Feet Under before True Blood came along, and so on.
Poniewozik, at least, hopes to see more new creators, not just HBO veterans, creating shows in the future at the cable network. He wraps up by remarking that Game of Thrones, with showrunning newcomers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, certainly fits the bill if HBO picks it up, while remarking that the show will have more in common with a gritty show like Deadwood than True Blood despite both having genre fantasy elements.
While digging around the amazing DeviantArt site, we stumbled across the fact that a group of fan artists decided to create a 2010 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, to share with fans of George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy series, and with GRRM himself. After sending a copy of the calendar to GRRM, they’ve provided a glimpse at all the art for fans to take a look at.
You can find the original news post at DA from last month, with links to the included images and the artists who created them, here (particularly useful for seeing Mathia Arkoniel’s full images used in her compilation for August). A gallery with the full calendar design incorporated can be found here at guad’s gallery. A lot of love and talent poured into this, and it reminds us of just how much amazing fan art the series has and continues to generate.
BSC review has now posted their contest for a copy of the limited edition print from the Meisha Merlin edition of A Game of Thrones, painted by renowned artist Jeffrey Jones. Just one of 375 such limited editions prints, it’s a rare chance to get such a work of art for free.
Contest requirements are below:
Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin posts an update that touches on the fates of his beloved New York NFL teams, but also includes this tidbit regarding his work on the much-anticipated A Dance with Dragons:
“I meant to post yesterday on the weekend’s games, but got busy writing instead, and finished a Tyrion chapter that I’ve been struggling with for six months. Nibbling away at that knot. We’ll see if the finished chapter holds up to reread and polish today.”
The Game of Thrones card game, published by Fantasy Flight Games, is having its price lowered by almost half, while the card count per expansion is increased. This is part of a move that will cover all of FFG’s card games using the Living Card Game format. The article linked above provides in-depth details on these changes. An excerpt below explains the basics of the change:
DriveThruRPG, online retailer of e-text editions of a wide range of roleplaying game products, has a special $10 dollar sale on a number of titles. Among them? The A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Game, an award-winning adaption of the setting by Green Ronin. It’s an excellent way to get to look at the game, which has a custom system specifically for the setting, some new pieces of art for the setting, and some basic write ups concerning the setting’s geography, history, and politics.
MSN Canada joins in the Game of Thrones buzz when film and television critic Kim Linekin lists the possible HBO series as a show to watch out for in 2010. While this is technically incorrect—it’s all but impossible for the show to air this year if HBO orders a season in March, unless they approach airing it very differently from their standard procedures in the past—it’s still great to see yet another critic getting behind the potential of the series.
As 2009 drew to a close and 2010 started, critics have been writing about what they’re looking forward to in the coming year. James Poniewozik, an early booster of the HBO’s Game of Thrones project, kicked it off by expressing his hopes that HBO will greenlight the season come March.
Ken Tucker over at Entertainment Weekly said much the same, joining what’s a growing number of television critics and commentators who have reason to believe the adaptation of George R.R. Martins’ bestselling fantasy series could make for terrific television. This is hot on the heels of the print edition of Entertainment Weekly making a mention of the project as we reported yesterday.
In its latest issue, Entertainment Weekly makes a mention of HBO’s proposed Game of Thrones series in a column by Lynette Rice. The article’s not up on the web, but the relevant excerpt has been provided by sharp-eyed reader AboutYeaHigh: