Game of Thrones release date teased (sort of)...and Spinoff(s) update

[LesClaypool]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...-to-air-in-first-half-2019-hbo-announces.html

OS ANGELES – The final season of “Game of Thrones” will air in the “first half” of 2019, HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys revealed at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to talk about what to expect [from the final season] although it’s pretty great,” Bloys said. “I don’t think we’ve announced a date yet so sometime in ’19… first half.”

Bloys also dished on the first of the five “Thrones” spinoffs that are in the works. He said the network is currently only working on one spinoff, and the others are either “on hold” or no longer in the works.

"We are doing a pilot that Jane Goodman wrote. Out of five, we’d be lucky to get one that we’re very excited about it," he said. "We’re just starting the search for a director [and] casting director."

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...-to-air-in-first-half-2019-hbo-announces.html

OS ANGELES – The final season of “Game of Thrones” will air in the “first half” of 2019, HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys revealed at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to talk about what to expect [from the final season] although it’s pretty great,” Bloys said. “I don’t think we’ve announced a date yet so sometime in ’19… first half.”

Bloys also dished on the first of the five “Thrones” spinoffs that are in the works. He said the network is currently only working on one spinoff, and the others are either “on hold” or no longer in the works.

"We are doing a pilot that Jane Goodman wrote. Out of five, we’d be lucky to get one that we’re very excited about it," he said. "We’re just starting the search for a director [and] casting director."

Unfortunately, in my mind they picked the least interesting of the five from a story point of view. It’s going to deal with tens of thousands of years before the current fire and ice story dealing with the creation of the white walkers (which we already saw, it was the “Children” ie the little magical squirrel elves who turned humans as a weapon in their losing war against the first group of humans to invade Westeros). So we’ll see relatively primitive humans fighting a bunch of little forest elve-ripoffs and then see them both get overwhelmed by white walkers and zombies before they band together to stop them. That would be great....if we haven’t already seen it! I don’t need multiple seasons to flesh that out.

The stories they apparently passed on that I find more interesting were:

1) Dunk and Egg series based on the novellas set 40 years or so before the current events which is already fleshed out in novella and graphic novel form.

2) the “Dance of Dragons” which is a couple of hundred years before the current GOT storyline and features a civil war amongst the Targeryians and battles with dragons on both sides. It involves lots of families we already know from GOT but in somewhat unique positions and lots of dragon fights!

3) “Aegon’s Conquest” which is set in between the Dance of Dragons and the first “Long Night” where the Targs first conquer Westeros with the help of one giant dragon, far bigger than the largest in Dance of Dragons or Dany’s Little pets. It features most of the houses as actual kingdoms fighting a smaller invasion force...but that invasion force has a giant %*% dragon!

Only the kingdom of Dorne was not fully destroyed but eventually gave up anyways.

I think any of those three would have been better than the Long Night rehash. The fifth option they were mulling over was a direct prequel which would have been dumb.

 

[LesClaypool]

In another article I read on the subject, they said that her story deals w/events ~100 years before Jon Snow. Not sure what's accurate. Just something I saw.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

In another article I read on the subject, they said that her story deals w/events ~100 years before Jon Snow. Not sure what's accurate. Just something I saw.

I’ll dig around. Last I heard they picked the first Long Night pilot to run to series.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

In another article I read on the subject, they said that her story deals w/events ~100 years before Jon Snow. Not sure what's accurate. Just something I saw.

“Per the official logline, “the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”

In addition to writing the pilot, Goldman (X-Men: First Class) will serve as showrunner, and will join Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin as an executive producer. You’ll have to wait a bit to see it, though: Bloys said earlier this year the prequel won’t debut until at least a year after the original GoT wraps up — which won’t happen until 2019.”

So it looks like the Long Night to me. Which I’m not super excited about.

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

Yeah it’s definitely the Long Night prequel that got picked up (unfortunately, in my opinion).

Questions posed to HBO’s Director of Programming.

“For the prequel pilot, author George R.R. Martin has suggested the title The Long Night. Do you have a working title, at least?”

No, we’re keeping it all … we’re obviously excited about the script and the story.

“I heard Max Borenstein’s prequel script also had some interest. Is there any chance of a second GoT prequel pilot greenlight this year or are those on the shelf until you see how this turns out?”

No. The development process was very positive. Other people got busy, things didn’t come together … It’s fair to say we’re excited about this pilot, we’re hoping to shoot it in the first quarter of ’19, I don’t anticipate any movement on any other prequels until we [see what this one is].

“You picked the prequel script by Jane Goldman, the one female showrunner among the five in development, what’s her perspective on Westeros like compared to the show we all know?”

“The story’s time period, another 8,000 years before [the events in GoT], it’s far enough away so it feels like a different story, a different world, because it is — the kingdoms do not exist at this point. So it felt distinct. We’re not trying to do Game of Thrones Part II. No one is going to duplicate what [GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] did. By setting it when we did, there’s a lot going on, a lot of dynamics that are related to Game of Thrones, but it’s different enough with its time period and characters its duplicative.”

http://ew.com/tv/2018/07/25/game-of...medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

 

[Imtotallynottribe]

The Max Borenstein script that apparently came in second was about the Doom of Valyria (where the dragons and dragon riders came from) and shortly before the fall the conquest of Aegon (head of the Targs which was actually a relatively minor house on Valyria) shortly before its fall.

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki...enstein_prequel_leaks_to_Game_of_Thrones_Wiki

That one is FAR more interesting in my mind. The link gives a LOT of details and it is far more engaging than seeing primitive humans fight squirrel elves and zombies.

I mean what’s more interesting? Hundreds of dragons and the original Valyrians (modelled loosely after Rome) fighting a multiethnic “Carthage” from the GOT version of Africa as well as showing how a minor house could conquer all of Westeros all before a giant volcanic cataclysm takes down an entire civilisation.

Or seeing some squirrel elves

Take on primitive humans

Hurray?

 

[LesClaypool]

Officially announced that it will FINALLY return in April, 2019

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-8-premiere-date-hbo-1203027131/

 

[ggmike1992]

I just caught up with this series a month or so ago. Excited for it to return.

 

[Nolomite]

Have some faith in the process - the treatments of each idea will be tested before they get picked up/kicked to the curb. Just because there is an idea that sounds great does not mean it won't have crappy script, set design, dialog, etc. And vice-versa.

All of these ideas & treatments thereof need to be money-makers, so it's entirely possible to take the best idea and make it un-sellable, and again, vice-versa.

I just hope Sean Bean lands in one and gets killed in spectacular fashion - traditions are important.