The news has finally been made public, so I'm finally free to whoop and holler and share the great news -- the HBO pilot of A GAME OF THRONES will start filming in October, in Northern Ireland. The announcement was made in Belfast. Here you go:
Before it was a film studio, the Paint Hall was part of Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff Shipyards, where the TITANIC and many other ships were constructed. The facility is pretty titanic as well. Of course, all of us connected with A GAME OF THRONES are hoping we'll fare somewhat better on our own maiden voyage.
Yes, Parris and I will be going over to Ireland this fall to see at least part of the filming. Not for the whole shoot, alas, I don't have time for that... but we have to be there for at least part of it. Maybe we'll see some of you in a Belfast pub.
There's lots of other exciting news on the pilot as well, but nothing I can share. Sorry, lips are sealed. You'll have to wait for Mr. Benioff and Mr. Weiss... and HBO.
Nope. I will buy HBO for this. And then I will send a letter to HBO saying that I bought a subscription just to see the show. This show has to be supported, or else it will disappear like Rome. Rome had a three-season arc planned, but because of production costs and average viewership, they cut it down. We can't let the same thing happen to ASOIAF.
So buy a subscription and support good story telling.
Canelek wrote:And therein lies the first problem. Since this has a builtin fanfase, the biggest challenge is to draw in people.
Obviously, HBO has done well in this regard, not to mention their reputation for original programming is incredible.
I've rethought my position. You are correct. HBO deserves support. I don't have cable or satellite anymore (waste!) so can only support them with Blu Ray sales I suppose as DVD quality is crap. If this airs during Football season, there's a chance I'll have cable.
I'd prefer some sort of HBO internet subscription option though. Perhaps through iTunes or something.
Internet sub would be cool. As much as I despise HBO for killing so many excellent shows, I simply cannot un-sub--especially since the cable cost without HBO is only like 6 bucks less--they really fuck you on HD (Comcast).
Anyway, their bottom line is more production cost than user subscriptions, although the latter most certainly applies!! I can only expect excellence from them, most of the time. They have a pretty fucking great track record, premature series cancellation or not! The technology is there--I expect A Song of Ice & Fire to be at least above-average.
Oh dear, George is going to be in Ireland for months not writing!
Damn you HBO! Damn you to hell!
</sarcasm>
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
One and the same, Fair.
Interesting. I'd much rather see it as an RPG instead of an MMO. RPGs could successfully tell the story, but to do that, the story would have to be finished...
Gotta love the casting to date. Sean Bean adds that extra element of being able to drawn in other fans of the genre that are unaware of Martin's work. Good times!
Yep. Such big names only make it better and better for HBO to pick this up for a full season. I know that the success of other HBO shows has hinged on the fact that they don't have big name stars at the inception (Sopranos, The Wire), but for a fantasy series that some people may be leery about, those names might be the only pull they need.
Another way I've seen fans of the show describing it to non-fans is "it's a Sopranos with swords", which I find to be a very apt analogy. We have several different mobs, all with their own agendas, who don't hesitate to eliminate members of the opposing mob when it suits their purpose. Frankly, I'll describe the show as anything if it gets people watching. I've already sent HBO an email telling them that I'm signing up for their channel as soon as ASOIAF gets picked up. One email may be silly; but if they get a 1000 or 10,000, that means something else entirely.
Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn Stark! She looks the part, although I am not familiar with her roles, so much. Hollywood Reporter broke the news. George Martin was trying to keep it a secret so he could spill it at whatever *con he is going to.
Dany is inspiring the biggest debate right now, some saying she doesn't look the part, others that she's perfect. The rest (including Robb...good lord, he's exactly what I envisioned) seem to have been spot on hits. I'm just concerned now, because Jon, who is supposed to be the same age as Robb, is nowhere near his size or build.
The casting has been fantastic so far. I can't help but compare this cast to Rome's, and how perfect the fits seem to be for the characters envisioned. Now, if only James Purefoy will come and be on ASOIAF. Maybe as the Hound?
Well, that is really the rub.... based on HBO's past handlings of wonderful shows such as Deadwood and Carnivale, things look bad. I can't imagine this having anything resembling a modest budget. That said, if the fans like it, and it draws a crowd of folks who had no clue about the books....well, we shall see.
I think the bulk of us is just happy to get to see a visualization of a masterpiece story (well, at least part of it).
I'm gonna stay optimistic. Hopefully, they've learned form their mistakes. With the BBC helping to fund the show like they did with Rome, and the experiences both studios have from that I hope they will do it right this time (and see it through to the end!).
Yep. I've said it before in this thread, but the more emails you send them saying "I'm signing up for you if ASOIAF is picked up", the more likely it is that this show will last. The hype around the internet is being noticed. We just have to turn that hype into realistic results so HBO keeps paying the bills.
I'm not even going to pretend to be interested in this until that fat fuck can interrupt his busy convention and football schedule to actually, you know, FINISH THE FUCKING BOOKS.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
He'll finish eventually. He just happened to write something so complex that simply keeping the alive/dead characters in order is a mystery to even him.
masteen wrote:I'm not even going to pretend to be interested in this until that fat fuck can interrupt his busy convention and football schedule to actually, you know, FINISH THE FUCKING BOOKS.
masteen wrote:I'm not even going to pretend to be interested in this until that fat fuck can interrupt his busy convention and football schedule to actually, you know, FINISH THE FUCKING BOOKS.
masteen wrote:I'm not even going to pretend to be interested in this until that fat fuck can interrupt his busy convention and football schedule to actually, you know, FINISH THE FUCKING BOOKS.
Canelek wrote:He'll finish eventually. He just happened to write something so complex that simply keeping the alive/dead characters in order is a mystery to even him.
No, he just jumped off his own outline when his first couple books were massively popular to try to squeeze the cash cow for all it was worth.
The result? One lousy book in Crows, followed four years later by a book I'm sure will be equally lousy before he's able to get back to the meat of the story.
Why are all these minor characters getting so much attention? Does anyone actually care about the maid of Tarth or the onion smuggler? The more I think about that book, the more awful Robert-Jordanish habits I identify.
At least there won't be a calendar in 2010 to distract him. Just all those other shitty series of no true literary value.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt