Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
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New cast member Iwan Rheon, whose casting confirmation we reported on awhile back, and whose role (“BOY”) has been the subject of a lot of well-founded speculation, was interviewed by the always-excellent Red Carpet News regarding his experience filming on the show and just who he worked with.
(Watch the interviewer rather cheekily taking a stab at Rheon’s character’s identity with his opening question):
(Thanks to CoolOff on the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum for bringing the interview to our attention.)
GQ.com has declared “Blackwater”—the George R.R. Martin-pennied, Neil Marshall-directed penultimate episode of season 2—the “Year’s Best Television Episode”.
It’s hard to make an argument against that (though Matt Weiner and Vince Gilligan can surely make them), but the honor does come with a very nice “oral history” of the episode, from its conception to completion, as told by executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, as well as GRRM and Marshall. Some interesting details along the way, and it’s well worth reading.
However, we can say that one detail in the article seems to be an error—or, at least, was not sourced from the participants. Writer Brian Rafferty writes toward the end that “Martin is halfway” through the sixth novel. We contacted Martin’s office about this detail, to verify it, and have been informed that GRRM made no such statement. It may have been a misunderstanding or a mistaken assumption, but in any case, GRRM has not stated that he is “halfway” done with The Winds of Winter, the sixth novel of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.
This is very nice indeed. Courtesy of HBO, there’s now a long teaser featuring Will Simpson (storyboard artist) discussing the making of the history of Westeros pieces featured on the Season 2 Bluray (Pre-order: US Bluray, UK Bluray). Better still, we get one of those histories, narrated by Rose Leslie (Ygritte) who tells the tale of the raising of the Wall and the existence of the wildlings as only one of their own can see it.
These were definitely one of the highlights of the previous Bluray set, and we’re sure they’ll be a highlight for the second season set as well. For more information on the Bluray set, we have full details available here.
We thought we’d provide a little background to the iOs app that Random House released, titled A World of Ice and Fire, for those who’ve been peppering the forums and ourselves with questions about them. We’re very pleased at all the excitement, to say the least! First up, here’s the official press release that followed the app’s release:
Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin discusses various calendars, including Marc Simonetti’s 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar artist’s John Picacio’s own calendar, and the Literary Pin-up Calendar featuring literary characters from a number of fantasy novels, including ASoIaF.
And then, the real treat: the first look at the cover of the 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Pre-order: Amazon US) with art by the award-winning Gary Gianni. Depicted on that cover is a scene from a later novel in the series, and we’ll just leave it at that for those spoiler averse… but see below for what we think it is. As GRRM notes, it won’t be available until July of next year, but we’re eagerly anticipating this. Gianni’s a fantastic artist, and if something of its style seems just a littlest bit familiar, bear in mind that Gianni drew the Prince Valiant comic strip for eight years. Some of the armor designs and poses very much evoke Hal Foster’s great medieval adventure series.
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Mashable has the exclusive news that explains just what this was about: Random House is publishing an official companion app for the A Song of Ice and Fire series, beginning with A Game of Thrones and including additional content to go through the rest of the series to date.
It’ll be hitting the Apple iTunes app store tomorrow (November 27th), while a version for the Nook (not Android, as the Mashable piece says) is coming in the near future. A demo version will be available to just give you a taste of the entries, which cover characters and places, and includes interactive maps to help orient you. It’s all quite lovingly put together… and as you may notice from the lead image, it seems there will, indeed, be art to accompany entries (those two particular pieces of art are by the amazing Michael Komarck for the sadly-hard-to-get Dabel Brothers 2009 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar).
Much as predicted in the Icelandic article we reported on last week, Game of Thrones season 3 wrapped on the 24th, a fact that came to light thanks to production assistant Cat Taylor who tweeted:
That’s a wrap on series 3!!
— Cat Taylor (@CatonSet) November 24, 2012
Which, not long after, was followed by this note regarding the wrap party…
Things I will regret tomorrow: jaeger.Head banging to “Living on a Prayer”.Trying to moonwalk.Jaeger.
— Cat Taylor (@CatonSet) November 25, 2012
Good times! Now it’s just left to post-production, while HBO really starts the marketing push. Not only did we get the teaser, but reports from L.A. and New York show that there are ads on buses and locations such as Times Square promoting the March 31st, 2013 premiere of the third season.
A brief but interesting update from the Making Game of Thrones production blog, discussing the fact that the introduction of Mance Rayder—played by Ciáran Hinds—was also Hind’s very first day of work, which was unusual. Daniel Minahan returns after his season 2 hiatus, as well, directing the first two epiodes of the season.
And, as a passing note, this confirms the return of Edward Dogliani as Rattleshirt, something which we didn’t really doubt, but hadn’t heard anything specific regarding it.
Just in time for the holidays, the folks over at award-winning RPG publisher Green Ronin have announced a “Winter is Coming” sale featuring some great deals involving the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay rule book and campaign guide (with their amazing covers by Michael Komarck) and various ancillary books, such as the narrator’s kit.
Also, if you missed it, The Night’s Watch is on a special pre-order deal for its PDF, with $5 off—and that one features another nice cover. We haven’t seen much more than the preview ourselves, but it looks like another well put together supplement from Green Ronin.
According to a report from Icelandic news site Visir, it looks like Game of Thrones filming will wrap on the 24th or 25th. That’ll be 138 or 139 days—four and a half months—since production started. And much of it at a dead run, with at least two units, and sometimes three, working in four different locations across that time span.
So, the last few days of the production are happening right now. And according to Cat Talor, today’s a “BIG day”. Hrm… !
EW has an exclusive report and sneak peek at the season 2 Game of Thrones Blu-ray and DVD set (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).
Set to be released on February 19, 2013 in the US, the Blu-ray set is particularly rich in additional content, including HBO Select, which means you’ll get digital copies of all the episodes. The full list of contents can be seen over at EW, but here’s a run-down:
And here it is, folks, short but sweet:
Is it what you expected?
Just a head’s up for eager fans of Game of Thrones: tune in to
HBO at 8:55PM (Eastern), before Boardwalk Empire‘s latest episode, and you’ll get to see a graphic teaser for season 3. No footage for the show, but there’ll be an image of some sort and perhaps even a line of dialog (much like the season 2 graphic tease from last year).
And, for those not in the U.S., never fear—it’ll be available online, courtesy of HBO. Keep an eye out for the link!
Wonder if it’ll feature swords as prominently as the premiere date poster?
The release of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones was a chance for fans the world over to get a closer look behind the scenes at the making of the series, thanks to the writing of series story editor and writer Bryan Cogman having penned the book, filling it with the insights he was able to take from fellow members of the production team and the cast.
And now the collector’s edition has been released (Order: Amazon US, Amazon UK), and it adds an additional wrinkle: among the various bits of swag, such as the scrolled maps, is a whole second volume, this one containing storyboards from artist Will Simpson which are a key part of the process of creating and producing the series.
To explain more about the books, and what they reveal and what’s contained within, we had the opportunity to interview Bryan so that he can provide a better understanding of what fans can expect to find.