During COSine, George R. R. Martin was interviewed in a podcast by the folks over at THACO. In it they talk mostly about his licensing deals when it comes to the various games that relate to the world of Westeros (RPG, board game, CCG, etc.) as well as some of his other projects. They do however touch briefly on the deal with HBO, mostly as it relates to these other licensed deals. Check out the podcast interview. If you don't feel like listening to the whole thing, the HBO stuff starts at about the 14 minute mark.
Winter Is Coming: Sounds like HBO didn't quite get their way when it came to the deal for the series. Hopefully that doesn't hurt its chances at getting picked up.
I'm glad they didn't ask when he would be done with ADWD. GRRM would have pimp-slapped them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it hurts AGOT's chanced to get picked up - much to the opposite, actually. If HBO decided to produce the Pilot well knowing that they wouldn't be getting all of the merchandising deals, that's gotta mean something. After all, they *are* an Inc. Company, and so they can be trusted not to fund a pilot for the simple joy of it.
ReplyDeleteI would think that HBO would realize that the ASOIAF licening having already been sold to other entities would mean that it's popular enough to already have a ground fan base. That's more than most new shows have.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't hurt AGoT chances, they were just trying to get whatever they could. But a deal was done and they'll judge it on the merits of the show now.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure HBO was hoping they could get the merchandising rights to the property, or at least a slice. The fact is it would be unusual (but not unheard of) for a pre-published book being turned into a film/tv show to give the sub-rights to the studio/network. Usually sub-rights for a book are held either by the author alone or jointly by the author and the publishers of the book. It all depends on the deal done with them originally, but it is not unusual for publishers to essentially act as an author's agent for sub-rights, and thus get a cut of whatever is made on them.
Dramatic sub-rights (the right to make a movie or TV show from a book) is just one slice of a long list of types of rights that are specified in a publishing contract. Others include: foreign English language (UK, Australia, etc.), translation rights (other languages), merchandising (games, toys, action figures, t-shirts, etc.), audio books, non-dramatic electronic rights, large print books and I think a couple others I'm blanking on right now. Then there is usually a catch-all clause or two for formats not yet invented.
If HBO was hoping to do big-time merchandising with the show it would be a big win for them to have a cut of that too. It's with the toys and games that George Lucas really made his money off of Star Wars - back then it was a whole new thing, after that, everybody tries to get a piece of what could be the next big toy/game bonanza. If HBO had those rights and thought they could get a lot of money off marketing them, it COULD make it more likely the show gets picked up, but there is no guarantee of that and lets face it, how many little kids are going to even be allowed to see the show, much less want to buy toy figures of Bran, Arya and The Hound? It would be adult collectors, a more limited market.
Another erudite and dead-on comment by Brude.
ReplyDeleteIt is kind of refreshing really after reading so much of the generally hmm vapid (couldn't think of a better word sorry wasn't trying to be pretentious) commentary on the ASOIAF message boards such as -Melisandre has red hair and told Jon Snow "You know nothing" at the end of one chapter...gasp Melisandre and Ygritte must be related! Or that Cold Hands must be the long dead Bloodraven-Brynden Rivers.
Well I would totally buy a Titus Pulo action figure...they should put those out.
ReplyDelete@dizzy - only if they made it of Pulo after he bit that guy's tongue out...they could have a little lever in the back that makes his mouth open so he can spit the tongue out onto the ground....
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, spend enough time in the Miscellaneous section of the Westeros.org forum and it really raises your discussion game. There are a ton of very smart and highly educated people there and their argument knives can be quite sharp.
ReplyDeleteThe productions design coming out of this series is going to have a very different look and feel to it than the products out already. IMO HBO would be entitled to a share of any new products bearing that design. For example, a board game with HBO's Eddard Stark will sell better than an artists conception of him.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling there was a little more to it than this. Everyone stands to make more money with this thing going to series. My guess is george had to spend a little more time than most trying to get his myriad of business contracts on board to feed off the gravy train.
You can expect new Action figures, sigils, swords... everything.
Thanks Brude I'll check it out.
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Great post Brude. Thanks for the insight! I guess the flip side could also be true in this case. HBO trying to get a slice of that merchandising pie could mean they expect it to be one of their large tent pole type shows. Which is a good thing, of course. And since they've gone ahead and green lit the pilot they apparently haven't been too bothered by the lack of merchandising rights.
ReplyDeleteOr it could be the greenlit the pilot because they had the guy who wrote Troy, which did pretty well money wise, at their door with an adaptation of some books he likes. "Troy made money, lets see if he can take the first hour of these books and put together something we, and our test audiences think will make money"
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't really talk about the HBO series at all, what was the point of even mentioning this as being related to the Series? It's like one sentence that references HBO, and that's it.
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