Westeros

Well, this is a fascinating development: Sky has announced that every episode

the premiere episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones will air simultaneously with the premiere airing in the US. That means diehard fans in the UK will be able to watch it at 2AM, if they feel like it, right at the same time as fans in the US. The usual 9PM Monday airing will also take place, for those who prefer their prime time television at prime time.

[Edit: It’s come to my attention that I was off the mark on this—initial reports that all episodes would be aired at 2 AM appear to be incorrect, only the premiere will be simultaneously aired with the US airing.]

This may be a publicity stunt, or perhaps dipping a toe into the water to see what would happen—and if it works, it’d be a clear response to piracy of the episode in the UK. The economic arguments have been undercut somewhat: streaming packages offering Sky Atlantic, including the £15 monthly Sky Go and the £4.99 (introductory) price on NOW TV, are available without needing a full TV package. The other most common argument after that, however, was the fact that many die-hard fans want to be able to take part in the conversation after a new episode as soon as possible. They may not stay up to 3AM watching an episode, but there are many who’d get up a bit earlier in the morning to watch the show so they could immediately leap on to the forums, or at least be very happy to have the episode waiting for them when they get back from school or from work. Sky Atlantic’s 9PM airings prevented that, however, and the wait was simply too long…

But it may be that the future will invalidate that argument as well. It will be very interesting to see if this makes a dent in illegal downloads of the premiere of Game of Thrones in the UK, which was ranked as the country with the fourth highest illict downloads of the show last year.

April 2nd will see the first episode of Game of Thrones receive a red carpet premiere in Stockholm, and in collaboration with HBO Nordic we’re offering fans the chance to be a part of it—and besides that, a chance for fans to attend a special fan event planned for the 6th of April. The winner of the competition will receive not one, not two, not four, but ten tickets to bring their friends along with them to the premiere; all other prize winners will receive pairs of tickets to the fan event.

See below for full details (in Swedish!), including instructions for how to enter the competition. Please bear in mind that the subject of the email should be exactly the same as noted below—makes it much easier for us to sort through entries!

George R.R. Martin has revealed over at “Not a Blog” that a brand new preview from The Winds of Winter will soon be up at his official website, replacing the current sample (do we have to say that following that link leads to spoilers?) Martin teases the fact that it’s in fact a chapter he’s written long ago, prior to any of the previous sample chapters, but it’s a chapter he’s rewritten many times indeed. He notes that it’s a chapter that very few have seen to date—his editors, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, Parris, a few others (*ahem*) number among them—and goes even further to tease it by revealing the name at the top of the chapter… which we’ll put in spoilers below:

Game of Thrones merchandising is burgeoning, to say the least, and this has led to the occasional oddity (like mini football helmets) and things you’d otherwise not expect them to make. Case in point? The newly released Game of Thrones: A Pop-up Guide to Westeros (Order: HBO Store, Amazon UK). I admit, the last pop-up book I owned featured the Transformers—not the new ones from the Michael Bay movies, the old Hasbro Transformers of the 80s. But a look around suggests that pop-up books aimed at fannish culture are certainly a thing, and the designer of this particular book—Matthew Reinhart—has cut a niche for himself bringing his abilities to the world of geek culture with Star Wars, DC comics, and… x80s Transformers, too; it’s a small world!

A lengthy interview with executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss—the longest I think I’ve ever seen—covers a huge range of topics, from the origins of their acquaintance to their current work on the unannounced season 5 (it’s happening, no need to wait for HBO to make it official). It’s insightful. Here’s an excerpt related to working from the template of a published series, and having the author on hand:

There’s more to be found over at Vanity Fair, including a fascinating bit discussing the influence of Anthony Mann, Roman Polanski, Akira Kurosawa, and Andrei Tarkovsky on the visual style of Game of Thrones; getting to watch an original, well-preserved 35mm print of Ran would indeed be something special.

Last month, I had the opportunity to sit down with a number of the actors involved in Game of Thrones, to talk about the journey so far, and perhaps to draw out a few hints about what’s to come. First up in this interview series—leading up to and into the next season—I had the pleasure to talk with Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Rory McCann (Sandor Clegane), the latter of whom I’ve never had the pleasure of interviewing before. We have a chance to talk the joys of Vine, the pleasures of Iceland, and how their characters get along as season 4 commences.

Interview

Maisie, many people have mentioned you as a very impressive actress. Do you have any method you use, or have you just picked things up since you started the show?

How does it feel not to get to act with Sophie?

To read the rest of the interview, visit our Features!

VerizonFIOS has a couple of exclusive videos up touting the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. The first is misnamed—it claims to be about the Red Wedding but is in fact about the wedding feast scene for the marriage of Joffrey and Margaery—while the second is a great look at the weapons and fight training. Note that the latter definitely is spoilerish in its way:

These are shorter promo pieces, half a minute long each, but they offer more tantalizing glimpses from the upcoming 4th season:

It’s been in the work for a few months, and at last, those of you with iOS or Android devices have a good chance (regional availability aside) to get a hold of the latest update to the World of Ice and Fire app (not the same thing as the forthcoming The World of Ice and Fire book), also known as the Game of Throens Guide for Android devices (Order: iTunes, Google Play). It’s a very substantial update, including dozens of new character entries, and scores of entries for many of the locations in the Lands of Ice and Fire maps. Especially all those new, never-before-mentioned locations found on the map of Essos, all taken straight from notes and details GRRM shared with us.

And for more casual fans who aren’t so interested in entries and the accompanying art? A Tyrion chapter from The Wind of Winter is included in the app, which is free to download (info packs—detailed entries that carry the app through the various books of the series—must be paid for as in-app purchases, but are unnecessary to get the excerpt).

Now, there’s lots of questions surrounding the app and its availability, so we’ll try and answer them below.

That Game of Thrones is a global phenomenon is without a doubt. It appears in scores of foreign markets, has events around the world where actors are eagerly sought after as guests, and the fan base reaches to some of the remotest places in the world. So it’s no surprise that the exhibitions of the show’s props and costumes have ranged widely, across both hemispheres. Usually, these have been specifically tied to promoting the TV show, but in at least one case they have been used for quite a different purpose: educational. At Stockholm’s Royal Armory, Sweden’s oldest museum and part of the royal palace complex (which happens to be one of the largest royal palaces still in use as a royal residence), a new exhibition titled Power Games (Maktspel) was launched last week exploring depictions of power in television and cinema. Set alongside costumes and artifacts from Sweden’s 16th century were costumes from the films Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age as well as Game of Thrones.

Linda and I were invited by the armory to take part, and so off to beautiful Stockholm we went! You can read more about what saw at the exhibit, and what’s in store for visitors, over at our Features page.

HBO has been on a tear with releasing content in the lead up to the April 6th premiere of Game of Thrones. After the NYC premeire, this new trailer was streamed—but now you can get it in all its 720p goodness via Youtube:

More to come, we’re pretty sure!

James Hibberd scores another exclusive, revealing that David Benioff and Dan Weiss have renewed their contracts with HBO, setting them on course to run the show through a prospective sixth season. As Hibberd puts it:

So, just to emphasize, a two year contract renewal is not a guarantee of a sixth season… but at this point it seems that, short of some catastrophe happening to HBO or the production, a sixth season is all but assured.

And then Weiss and Benioff will be up for contract renegotations again… and so, too, will a number of actors, we suspect, as six year option contracts are pretty normal in TV.

Week 3 challenge posted below!

Fans in the UK have a lot of reasons to be excited about Game of Thrones this season… not least that it’s now more accessible than ever thanks to NOW TV! The streaming service has all three past seasons available for streaming now, and will be airing season 4 within 24 hours of the US premiere date. Viewers can sign up on a month-to-month, no-contract basis, and besides Game of Thrones will have access to many other programs on demand and live showcasing a selection of Sky’s very best program offerings.

To help get the word out, NOW TV and Westeros.org are pleased to announce a contest series. The prize? An iron throne of your own, of sorts—one much more comfortable than the one Joffrey is sitting on. Approved by HBO, these numbered, limited edition Iron Throne seat backings will allow you to rule the Seven Kingdoms from the comfort of your own home.

Open to UK fans, the contest will run over three weeks, with one winner selected each week. See them below:

Week 1: DONE. Thanks for all the entries, and congratulations to the lucky winner!

Week 2: DONE. Thanks for all the entries, and congratulations to the lucky winner!

Week 3: Every ruler must have their words. Share with us your house motto , whether here in Comments (via Facebook) , on Twitter, or on Google Plus, and get a chance to win an Iron Throne!

We’ll have more on costuming soon, once we’re done with our report from Stockholm’s Royal Armory and its Power Games exhibition, but Time Warner Cable has a special feature on season 4’s costumes, courtesy of HBO. You can see it below. Among other things, I believe it gives us the first, absolutely official glimpse at Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Mace Tyrell:

A lot of new shots here, a few new bits of dialog, and at least one very, very interesting scene (see if you can guess which one we mean), can now be found over at the official Game of Thrones Facebook page.

Visually stunning work, as usual!