- There is only two seasons left
of Game of Thrones.
Time to get started on its spinoff.
George R.R. Martin is spilling the deats
on today's Nerdist News.
(upbeat electronic music)
It's hard to believe,
but pretty soon, the Song of Ice and Fire
will be hitting its final notes.
HBO's Game of Thrones only has two more abbreviated seasons
to go before it ends,
closing the book forever
on our favorite Sunday night obsession.
Thankfully, the network threw out a lifeline
to everyone dealing with premature
Westeros withdrawal symptoms
when they announced they were currently in development
of four potential series
that all take place in the Game of Thrones universe,
so don't go sacrificing yourself
to the Lord of Light just yet
because we may still have years of dragons,
torture, and incest to look forward to.
Yay, but what exactly will these new shows look like?
Well, nothing yet.
As we said, they're all currently only
in development with no guarantee
that any of them will actually be ordered to series.
In fact, in a recent statement,
HBO said, "We'll take as much or as little time
"as the writers need,
"and, as with all our development,
"we will evaluate what we have
"when the scripts are in."
Of course, with Thrones accounting
for such a huge chunk of HBO's subscriber base,
it seems almost impossible
that none of them will make it to the finish line
and wind up on air,
so what do we know so far?
Well, in a recent post on George R.R. Martin's LiveJournal,
and, yes, George R.R. Martin
is still using LiveJournal,
the site that you last used
to post about how excited you were
for Brittney's upcoming In the Zone album.
(laughing)
Oh man.
The author stated that all of the series
in the works are prequels,
taking place prior to the events of Game of Thrones,
and that he prefers to think of them
as successor series,
which is just a fancy way of saying spinoff
without causing you to immediately
think about Joey.
- Excuse me.
- He also snuffed out a few fan theories
about what parts of Westeros' history
the show may look into,
so hopefully you weren't getting too excited
about the live action adventures of Dunk and Egg,
because that's definitely not happening,
and neither is a show about Robert's Rebellion.
According to Martin,
we'll find out everything we'd ever want to know
about that particular conflict
by the time Game of Thrones proper comes to an end,
so in other words,
get ready for a bunch more time traveling Bran
in seasons seven and eight.
Now we also know there are currently four writers on board
to bring these four different ideas to life,
Max Bornstein of Kong Skull Island,
Jane Goldman of X-Men First Class,
Brian Helgeland of A Knight's Tale,
and Carly Wray of Man Men and The Leftovers.
Now this is a pretty interesting
and eclectic group of writers,
all of whom have past credits
in fantasy and sci-fi,
but all within some very different subdivisions
of the genre.
So do any of these past credits give us an idea
of what the upcoming series could be?
Could Borstein's residency on Skull Island
mean he's working on a series
about the bigger beasts of the Seven Kingdoms,
or is Helgeland's A Knight's Tale
a sign that arena rock
may finally be coming to King's Landing?
Well, obviously, we hope so,
because let's face it.
The only thing that could possibly make
Daenerys more fabulous
is if she had a Killer Queen soundtrack
backing her all the time.
Of course, it may be kind of early
to speculate about any of these writers
and their possible visions for the future
of Game of Thrones,
but if we had to choose one as a front runner,
our money would have to be on Carly Wray.
Now, she's the only writer of the group
with longterm television experience,
and she's worked on two
of the most critically acclaimed series of the last decade,
and while we could never downplay
the importance of big budget spectacle
on Game of Thrones,
something the other three writers
all have experience with,
we can't deny that it's the compelling character dynamics
and intricate plotting
that keeps us coming back week after week.
So what could Wray's script be about?
Well, seeing as how Wray is just coming off The Leftovers,
HBO's series about a world
reeling from a huge cataclysmic event
that forces everyone to reevaluate their faith,
we could see her Thrones series
going down a very similar track.
We think we could be traveling back
to a time of great religious turmoil
in the Seven Kingdoms perhaps
to see how the Old Gods made way for the Seven,
or we could be looking at another cataclysmic event
from the series' past,
like the Doom of Valyria
when an unspecified disaster
fractured the Valyrian peninsula
into dozens of tiny islands,
throwing the once prosperous kingdom into chaos.
Wray's time on Mad Men would be perfect for that.
Fractured kingdom, fractured ad agency,
pretty much the same thing, right?
- [Man] Sure.
- Pretty much.
But like we said,
this is just our best guess
based on the info that we have,
and hey, we don't even have all of the info yet
'cause in that same aforementioned LiveJournal post,
Martin mentions that after meeting with HBO,
they actually started work
on a fifth idea for a new show.
And while the writer of this new show
hasn't been named yet,
we do know that it is a he,
and supposedly he knows more about the world
of the show than anyone,
leading us to believe
he may be one of the old show's stalwart writers
like Bryan Cogman,
who has been at Benioff and Weiss's side
from pretty much day one.
So yup, we currently have five writers
vying for the control of the Seven Kingdoms.
Seems pretty appropriate,
but if you were crowned King of Game of Thrones,
what series would you rush into production?
A Knight King's Tale,
a Brienne of Tarth Rom Com?
Yes, let's discuss.
(upbeat electronic music)