Over at Tower of the Hand they've posted a link to an article on AV Club that discusses the seeming trend within the television industry to turn books into TV series. In it they touch on Game of Thrones and evaluate its chances at being a successful television series. Here is what they had to say:
A Song of Ice and Fire (HBO, ordered to pilot): Based on George R.R. Martin’s lengthy, long-delayed epic fantasy series (planned to sprawl over seven books), Song is the potential series that has most excited both book and TV fans, if Internet buzz is any indication. Martin’s series, indeed, seems like a good fit for HBO (the network initially described it as “The Sopranos in Middle-Earth”), and the author, a former TV writer, will be intimately involved in turning the novels into a series. Each book will equal one season of the show, and the first announced bit of casting (Peter Dinklage as Tyrion) seems almost too good to be true. The books are dense but not so dense that their events can’t easily be conveyed in a 12 episode TV season, and the plots are intriguing with well-drawn characters. That said, the big question here is going to be expense. Once the series leaves the rather intimate first novel behind, will it have the ratings to justify the money needed to build the worlds of the later novels? Chances of succeeding: Solid
Winter Is Coming: Nice to see even more mainstream articles on Thrones popping up. Also nice to see them noticing the Internet buzz. HBO has to be liking the amount of hype this project is receiving, especially with it still so early in the game. Now, like I said, they just need to keep the hype train rolling with some big casting announcements!
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The interesting part to me, aside from the ever-building buzz, is the fact that ASoIaF's structure, pacing, etc. all seem to have been preordained for eventual cable television production. Starting with the "rather intimate first novel," as they put it, assuring wary buyers the first season would be the cheapest to produce.
It's as though George had a larger goal in mind from the very beginning, hm?
I agree, Yea High. The books seem to be built for t.v. from the beginning. GRRM having once been a writer for tv probably has something to do with it — he knew it would make great reading as well as watching.
GRRM's always said that if his books were ever put to film it would have to be a full series with multiple episodes covering each novel on network like HBO that wouldn't have to tone it down for a PG audience.
So I think this has been his hope and plan all along and he must be thrilled about it.
Lauren, yeahigh, I disagree. He didn't know they would be best-sellers. I'm not even sure he tried to write a marketable book for fantasy, but he did write a damn good one. He does have tv writing experience. He couldn't have predicted this success. The series starts when magic and dragons are a thing of the past and it gradually returns. He isn't the first to use it, but he does it so well.
I'm not sure that any writer sends off their manuscript to a publishing house and thinks "Man, I hope this gets turned into a TV show!" His books have become wildly popular, so at some point later on, GRRM probably began to think about TV/movie possibilities for the books... and it just so happens that his writing style really lends itself to it because of his background in TV writing.
The story is cliffhanger-driven, a natural fit for tv series.
Did anyone read the comments below the article? Same conversation about book delays and re-casting child actors.
Yeah the time line is something I'm still a little doubtful of as far as GRRM goes. He hasn't got the speediest track record...
It's as though George had a larger goal in mind from the very beginning, hm?
I think it's more likely that GRRM's years writing for TV affected how he structured his storytelling, more than that he planned from the beginning that he might sell the show as a TV series. At the time GoT came out, nobody, not even HBO, was doing shows on the scale where one could conceive of turning the books into a show. For that reason, I doubt that was a serious intention of his. What I think happened, he realized that some of the structures and plot devices used in TV could translate well to the book medium.
My dad was good friends with David Jacobs, who created the show "Dallas," they grew up together, and one of the things Jacobs said to my dad once was that his favorite book was "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." He also said that the author of the book always put some little twist or beat at the very end of each chapter that left the reader unable to put the book down and want to read on to the next. Jacobs employed this same device in how he structured the shows "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest," ending on cliffhangers, sudden twists of the plot, etc., so that each week the viewer wanted to tune in for the next episode. It's also the same technique used in the old 15-minute, Saturday movie serials he and my dad and all kids in the 1940's and early 1950's would see once a week at the movie theater. For a nickle or a dime, they'd see about an hour's worth of serials, 4 different stories, and each week they'd get a new chapter of each. Most were westerns, some were sci-fi (like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers), but all used this same sort of technique.
Well I guess this raises a good question then: who approached who about this becoming a TV series?
Did David and Dan approach GRRM more or less "out of the blue" or had Martin been shopping the idea to people in the TV industry for a while?
According to David Benioff, he was given the books as a present by a friend a few years ago. He read them, was hooked, knew DB Weiss was also a fan, and they took the project forwards. I 'think' that HBO also wanted to do something with Benioff based on his rising profile and it all came together naturally.
As for the books, GRRM actually said that when he started writing AGoT, having just come off three years on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and two on THE TWILIGHT ZONE, he actually wanted to write something where people weren't telling him it was too long or too expensive. He was, in fact, trying to write something as far from practical television adaption as possible.
What I am more concerned about is if this will have an impact on the later books. I'm hoping he won't, but when he's writing a scene for Book 7 where the three dragons are roasting an army of fifty thousand undead alive in an epic battle outside Winterfell (or whatever), he might be thinking, "Christ, HBO have to film this, maybe I should tone it down a bit." :-O
The BBC have a news report on the Paint Hall and the 'Your Highness' movie here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8143317.stm
(might only be accessible to UK viewers)
They mention a 'big American TV production' will start up immediately after filming on the movie wraps, and suggest that the skills the local teams have developed for 'Your Highness' (such as building castle facades and sets) could be used on that and other projects as well.
Means that they will probably "recycle" sets from "Your Highness"... sounds cheap but oh well,its justa a pilot, hopefully they willbuild they own sets if series is picked:D
Holy f*! ive just read the article from this post and learned about Kim Stanley Robinsons Red MArs being developed for tv series! Thats alsmost as good news as when i first read about GoT adaptation :D
Winter, can we get a new article for this Paint Hall news? I love the vid. peeks we're getting of the place.
Also, I tried to post an update on Tom Payne: out of the running for GoT, it seems (as per his Twitter message), but for some reason the screen shifts down, making it impossible to hit "post."
And my web fu is weak, and cannot overcome.
Since when is Tower of the Hand mainstream press?
Don't get me wrong I am behind the project and hope it blows everyone away, but as with the previous 'tv critics' article, these are nerdy bloggers that you are reporting as mainstream press here. When we start seeing articles in the major news agencies etc. it will have reached mainstream.
Let's hope it won't be long.
Tower of the Hand didn't write the article, noob.
The link was to AV Club, not Tower of the Hand. All Winter was doing was reporting the source of his link, as he always has.
AV club is as legitimate as any internet media source (and isn't as skewed or one-man influenced as Ain't-It-Cool News). Prior to this Winter posted links to articles written by people from Time magazine and the Chicago Tribune
I think the second anon was commenting the first anon comment concerning whether tower of the hand was mainstream or not..
A third anon...
Just an FYI, you can comment as "Name/URL" so you can at least have a nickname, and not be one of the Anonymous hive mind. :)
ahh nice :)
I have it from friend of a friend of a friend (who is a very reliable contact in the industry) that they cast Gillian Anderson as Catelyn sometime ago. Just waiting for ComiCon to make the huge announcement.
Great JC, queue the Gillian Anderson flamewar.. Personally I think she'd be perfect! I mean they could do A LOT worse. But from the last hundred times it's been discussed, it seems a lot of people don't see it.
i think brude has it right:
GRRM has a knack for writing scenes in such a way as to feel very cinematic and built in a narrative style conducive to film. this is not a coincidence, but it wasn't premeditative either.
i remember when i picked up GoT and read the prologue, as the Others did their business at the end of it, i started picturing it as a filmed sequence straight away. then Eddard's chapter happened, and more of the same. i was marveling at GRRM's ability to put together a chapter as a vignette, as a scene, each having a beginning a middle and an end.
aka: perfect for adaptation. but many writers do this. that's why the murder mysterly genre is frought with adaptation potential, it's ALL cliffhanger driven.
GRRM's work is different than the drivel, but there's a guilty pleasure in his structuring that makes him more accessible than tolkien and the like. his writing is much more modern, and less archaic. more visceral and less candy coated.
aka: perfect for HBO.
aka: what?
bye bye.
...ryan
Gillian Anderson?! What flame war? I'm confused
Well, I for one hope that JC's friend three-times removed is right about Gillian Anderson, she's about the best possible Catelyn I can imagine, that being said I'll take anything I heard online from some random person, 3-times removed with a certain grain of salt until I see it come true.
Agree with Brude ... taking that with a pinch of salt, but keeping my fingers crossed.
It's great to see that some buzz is starting to build!
look at my facebook, i auditioned for Jon and have had two call backs, fingers crossed!!
though in saying that everything has went very quiet!!
www.facebook.com/jon'stark'snow
or Bebo
www.bebo.com/jonsnow17
feed back wud be great
I really doubt the truth of the Gillian Anderson "rumor", but even the thought of the possibility of this actually happening is still better than all the rumors/whispers I heard in the last two month. If she was chosen it would really make my day. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed too :).
I really doubt the truth of the Gillian Anderson "rumor". But even the thought of the possibility of this actually happening is a hundred times better than all of the the rumors/twitters I read in the last two months. If Gillian Anderson was chosen it would really make my day. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed too :).
Winter, terribly sorry for the double post. Some stupid blog error screen kept on showing up after each post. You should probably remove the redundant ones (if the third one shows up). I feel like such a spammer :(.
Anonymous 8:19 AM
Man, you've already got the look! I wish you good luck!
Do you have any audition tape to share?
Susanna Thompson plays Queen Rose in the cancelled NBC show Kings.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0860749/
She reminds me of Catelyn, could probably pull off an accent, and Kings has been cancelled (sadly) so she'd be available, I think.
@Anthony McKenna ...you do have the right look for Jon...you may want to be careful about what you post here though...hate to see you ruin your chance at the part is all...though I'm dying to know the details LOL
I would be all in favor of Gillian Anderson as Catelyn/Lady Stoneheart.
Oh, how exciting. I'm relatively new the aSoIaF series, but a fan all the same. I love the books, and an HBO series, IMO would be a smash hit. Like Rome. Rome is awesome. I think "Thrones" would be similar. Hopefully this all works out, I know I'm looking forward to seeing the books put to film.