GRRM has written a wonderful write-up for Suvudu’s championship match between Jaime Lannister and Rand al’Thor, with cameos by Birgitte of the Bow, Nynaeve al’Meara, Egwene al’Viere, Aviendha, the Great and Powerful Turtle, Lohengrin, Melisandre, and of course Tyrion. It has some wonderful touches aimed as nods towards Robert Jordan, who was a friend of George’s and whose blurb on the cover of A Game of Thrones was a big help when the series first started. There’s also passing references to a number of other authors, such as Jack Vance and a fun one right at the end to another of GRRM’s good friends, Roger Zelazny.
The last line is chillingly right, for all you fans of A Song of Ice and Fire.
There’s just one day left to vote, and Jaime presently trails by 600 votes. Read the write-up and vote at Suvudu!
This is what we get for being over-excitable at the moment. Below we discuss a casting call for a new TV series from a “Major American production company”, shooting to start in June, lasting 6 months. We assumed that it was very likely for Daenerys. However, a bit of googling reveals more details of the role:
“Description:
Playing age 14-18 years.
With the face of and Angel and the Heart of a devil, the leading lady in this groundbreaking TV series is from a Spanish family that have moved to Italy. Has to be very petite and Manipulative in nature. RP / Neutral Accent.”
At a guess, this is for Showtime’s Borgias. For the sake of completeness, we’ll maintain our full speculation below, but we’ll emphasize that it’s clearly wrong. False alarm!
Thanks to the sharp-eyed Rabbit, it looks like the mystery of U.K. casting calls for Dany—something we were sure was taking place, but could never find any evidence for—may have been resolved. There’s a notice at the Casting Website in the U.K. which states the following:
“Major American production company is launching a new TV series to be aired to a UK audience. Looking for the leading girl to star in this ground breaking production. 6 Months filming from June.”
Most notably? Closing date is given as March 21st, which implies a couple of things: the call must have gone out at least a week prior to that date, and perhaps longer, and that the U.K. casting may have already progressed to the point of narrowing down to a couple of choices there. Given GRRM’s recent reference to looking at audition tapes from HBO, we might assume they’re starting to get pretty close. However, we do know that casting is still going on in New York City, with head shots and resumes still being solicited for actresses.
It’s entirely possible that this is for some other show entirely, but the timing fits perfectly with what we’ve been told before: June start and ~24 weeks of filming. To be fair, the same might be said of Starz! Camelot, also set to begin production in June in Ireland. If we can get a definitive answer as to what production the breakdown was for, we’ll report it.
George R.R. Martin clarifies the situation for international viewers, in regards to if and when they will be able to watch HBO’s Game of Thrones on television in their native countries. GRRM goes through a list of countries and territories:
Canada: HBO Canada will air it at the same days and times as in the U.S. Canada, the show will be seen on HBO Canada, same days and times as in the US.
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Chile: It will air on HBO Latin America, though days and times may vary.
France: It will air on Orange.
Israel: It will air on DBS.
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic: It will air on HBO Central Europe
Asia: It will be offered by HBO Asia to countries within their territory, but not all will necessarily carry it (in some cases due to content restrictions in those countries).
As for the countries not listed here… next week in Cannes, the MIPTV trade show will be attended by broadcasters and program directors from around the globe. HBO will have a presence, screening its shows and selling foreign broadcast rights. Game of Thrones will be on the table as well, and Martin says that in a few weeks HBO should know which countries will be opting to air the series.
GRRM has shared a great pair of photos showing Maisie Williams—cast as Arya Stark—posing with Valyrian Steel‘s replica of Arya’s sword, Needle. She looks very Arya-like, if we may say so! Valyrian Steel has two additional photos on their site
GRRM also confirms that filming commences in June in Northern Ireland. Not all actors may be in the area at that time, however, as Jason Momoa and Nikolai Coster-Waldau have both indicated they’re scheduled to start in early July.
George R.R. Martin is keeping himself very busy, with Dance with Dragons, Fort Freak, and a host of other tasks and projects now that he’s gotten taxes out of the way. Among them? Reviewing the latest batch of audition tapes. This follows our previous report on the fact that casting is going on for the role of Daenerys Targaryen, which may or may not mean that Tamzin Merchant is definitely out of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
However, one other thing that hasn’t been mentioned very much is that it’s quite possible that casting has begun in the U.K. for the many roles that will need to be filled by the time late June roles around. As always, more information as soon as we get it.
It’s time to get out the vote, folks, as Suvudu.com’s popular Cage Match 2010 hits the final round. Two titans of fantasy are facing off. In one corner: Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, master of half of a continent, fated to save the world from the Dark One. And in the other: Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. In common: good looks, popularity, and an unfortunate lack of a hand.
Jaime issued a challenge, calling for a trial of seven. Rand’s response was to refuse to take six champions with him into battle ... but he allowed Jaime whatever support he wanted, and Jaime means to take it. We’re all waiting to see the write-up from GRRM, which he’ll doubtless post to “Not a Blog” once it’s ready. Brandon Sanderson has promised he’ll provide some sort of analysis (though not a full write up) of how things should go from his perspective.
But don’t wait until then, vote now! It’s neck and neck, and the comments section is filled with commentary.
A member of the A Song of Ice and Fire forum has poured an incredible amount of work to create an animated timeline map for the series. Ser Mountain Goat’s map is not anywhere near done, as of yet, but there’s enough there to see the possibilities that the map will offer, once it tracks multiple characters as they criss-cross Westeros. His FAQ goes into great detail about the origins of the map, his sources, and his methodology. We’re very much looking forward to see it develop.
If you’d like to comment on the map, there’s a thread dedicated to it.
Harry Lloyd is once again loquacious about his work in an interview in Re-Bel on pages 7 and 8. At the bottom of page 7, he directly discusses his role in the Game of Thrones pilot, and the following question discusses the possibility that being involved in such a major, American production could open doors to Hollywood. Nothing really new here, but it’s good to see actors involved in the show taking time to make sure people are aware of it.
Thanks to firestar267 for the tip!
Suvudu.com’s Cage Match 2010—reported on in the New York Times, among other places—enters the final round when voting opens tomorrow to determine who’s the most dangerous of them all. Jaime Lannister, surging with the help of his supporters, has prevailed to face Rand al’Thor… but at the advice of Tyrion, he issued a challenge. Rand’s response? A confident refusal to take advantage of the offer of having six companions join him.
But perhaps it was too confiden. He allowed Jaime his six, and Tyrion is liking the odds. We’ll soon see what George thinks will happen, some time after voting opens tomorrow.
Over the past months, traffic to Westeros—both to the various website sections and the forums—has grown steadily, in no small part due to the buzz surrounding HBO’s Game of Thrones project. Given this, we thought it might be fun to take a little look at the various sections that make up the site and introduce them to both new and old visitors.
First up, Blood of Dragons MUSH, the reason that this site exists at all as all of Westeros was originally envisioned as a website with information for players of the MUSH. As it happened, the website grew so that the pages associated with the game became one section among several and the MUSH itself took longer than expected to complete. But in November 2006 it finally opened and the story has been unfolding ever since. Perhaps you want to be a part of it?
George R.R. Martin has shared that Valyrian Resin, creators of licensed resin sculptures, are having a clearance sale and are moving on to other projects. The figures on sale are the Sandor Clegane, Eddard Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen minibusts and their variants. The full details and pictures can be found at GRRM’s “Not a Blog”.
Linda and I own the three regular versions of the sculpts, courtesy of Jed and Justice at Valyrian Resin, and we must say, they are excellent pieces of work: sizable, solid, and well-crafted. It’s a shame we won’t see any more of their versions of characters (we were hoping to see Tyrion at some point), but what they did create was very admirable. If you check out their website, you’ll see that there’s a lot of exciting work afoot for them as they focus on prototyping figures for major names such as Sideshow and Diamond.
The So Spake Martin collection has been updated with a new audio interview with George R.R. Martin, carried out by Gamer’s Haven. As the name of the site might suggest, there’s a special focus on gaming in the interview, discussing GRRM’s history with games and their influence on his work.
While this may be old news for some, we haven’t reported it up until now because we’ve had no official confirmation of any kind regarding it. We had contacted HBO about this immediately after the rumors based on Showfax’s new casting sides (pages of dialogue for use in auditions) had gone up. From our discussion with HBO, all we can say is that officially, HBO’s policy is to never discuss recasting or even rumors of recasting, and they’re unable to offer any information either confirming or denying recasting.
However, as we saw on Twitter, more than one actress has allegedly confirmed via Twitter that they are pursuing the role of Daenerys. So, we’ll take this as its being highly likely that casting is taking place for the role. However, we caution that we know nothing yet as to the reasons or the end results. Having read around a bit, there are possibilities that suggest that Tamzin Merchant remains the primary choice for the role, but additional casting is taking place as insurance against her departure for reasons unknown. While we agree that the likeliest supposition is that Merchant is no longer in the role, we’ll caution against taking this as an absolute certainty.
But if Merchant is out of the role, what does this mean? Well, it seems they’ll be forced to go back to Morocco—or build fresh sets in Belfast to represent it—to reshoot all the scenes there. As some may recall, GRRM indicated that a return to Morocco was a possibility but not a certainty. Starting the renewed production with major reshoots—on top of any new reshoots needed now that Michelle Fairley is in the role of Catelyn Stark—is not the greatest way to start a production, and may lead to a tight shooting schedule to begin with, but should be entirely manageable. Recasting is more the rule than the exception when it comes to pilots, and consequent reshooting goes hand in hand with that.
We’ll provide more information when we can.
Thanks to the fans who voted in droves, George R.R. Martin’s Jaime Lannister rallied and came from behind to defeat Patrick Rothfuss’s Kvothe. A tremendous battle! Now Jaime’s on to face the final challenge: the Dragon Reborn, Rand al’Thor, from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. Rand is incredibly powerful, and the general opinion is that all he needs to do is use balefire. . .
But GRRM wants to even the field. Jaime has demanded home-turf advantage and that the final showdown be a trial of seven, as is his right as a knight under ancient Westerosi custom. What would this mean? If Suvudu’s editors agree, this means Rand will gain six companions—any characters drawn from the works of both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (who has continued the series following Jordan’s untimely death)—against Jaime’s six allies, drawn from Martin’s works and settings. This would mean that Rand could have Conan on his side (Jordan wrote a number of authorized Conan novels), or Lan Mandragoran, or even Moridin ... while Jaime could potentially have Haviland Tuf, Ser Arthur Dayne, or even the Ice Dragon on his side.
Will Suvudu’s editors go for it? We shall see! We’ll update when a decision is rendered and the polls open.
A small update, as production preparations on HBO’s Game of Thrones begins to pick up pace as the late June start date draws nearer. Over at Extras NI, they’re again recommending that extras avoid cutting or dying their hair, and that male extras consider frowing out their beards and getting a “timeless look”. One funny bit of trivia in the recent past was that for the pilot, members of an Irish heavy metal fan forum were recruited to play extras because they had the requisite look. Seems like Extras NI doesn’t want to be in that position again.
Most notably, they’re recommending that extras stay with this look until January 2011. This fits pretty well with our previous information concerning the many weeks of shooting, beginning in late June and apparently running through the end of the year.
Hat-tip to Winter is Coming for bringing this update from Extras NI to light.