Move over
Mad Men,
Game of Thrones is now king of Sunday Nights. In the second week of its new season, the HBO medieval drama was the leader both in total number and the 18- to 49-year-old demographic in cable tv viewers. “Thrones” drew 3.766 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings data, compared to 2.69 million viewers for Mad Men, which took third." Recently Game of Thrones executive producer D.B. Weiss chatted with
TheHuffington Post about the show and discussed a number of interesting topics---
WEISS: Well, I guess typical HBO shows don’t involve dragons or ice demons either. [Laughs.] So in some ways, this is clearly not a typical HBO show, and in other ways, we think it is very much a typical HBO show. Yeah, we realize if it all goes well, it could potentially be quite a long commitment, but we realized that going in. We'd read the books, same as anyone, and we had spoken to George about where things were going, and we went in with eyes open, knowing that if all went well, we would end up with a very, very long, coherent story that spanned several seasons of television. That was the attraction for us, really. I mean, I just I feel like that’s something new. Maybe with the exception of "The Wire," which has that overarching, novelistic feeling to it, there are few examples of that kind of truly long-form, consistent storytelling out there, especially in this genre, which seems so tailor-made for it. It seems to be a feature of this genre -- building a world of this size and playing [the story] out over many, many years. George has done a better job of that than anyone that I know of. That was really what it was all about for us.
It's always seemed like an all-or-nothing, damn-the-torpedoes kind of enterprise. It's something that you're either going to do right or you're not going to do at all. So to the best of our ability, we're going to keep trying to do it right and not make any emergency/contingency plans because I don't think fear is going to help make the show be what it should be. I mean, George’s series is a bold series in many ways and we hope to emulate that and really go for broke on it.
On Alan Taylor and losing him to Thor 2:
WEISS: Alan certainly is one of [the key players]. By the time Season 2 is finished, he'll have directed 6 of the 20 episodes. It's almost a third of the show. We feel like his look in many ways epitomizes the way we want the show to look. The way he directs is just something we've had so much love and admiration for, and now, so much jealousy since he's been stolen away to go do "Thor 2." So we love you, Alan. And [frick] you, "Thor"!
It makes me sad, but everyone is happy for him obviously and jealous and greedy. We want to keep him for ourselves.
On creating scenes that didn't necessarily occur in the books:
WEISS: Yeah, I think it does happen more this season. It's episode to episode -- there is no blueprint for it. [Through the post-production process], you watch each episode many, many times, and you realize as you're watching them that some of them have a great deal of new material and some of them are weighted in favor of the scenes that appear in the books.
It really is a question of: What’s the best way to get the characters where they’re going? What’s the best way to unfold [their lives] dramatically? What’s going to be the most satisfying way? Sometimes, the dramatic necessity pulls you away from the book. If the book deals with a piece of character information in a expositional way, where you [learn] a backstory way that's very hard to dramatize, maybe you come into that element of a character from a different direction.
This is roughly half of the interview so be sure to click the source link and read the entire transcript. We're only 2 episodes deep into the second season of Game of Thrones but the
season premiere, directed by Alan Taylor was phenomenal and bodes well for Thor 2, which is said to explore the other 9 realms hinted at in the first film and take on a more Vikingish aesthetic in lieu of the science influenced look of Kenneth Branagh's film.
Running Time: 60 minutes
Release Date: April 2012 (Season 2)
TV Rating: TV-MA for sex & nudity, violence & gore, profanity, alchohol/drugs/smoking and frightening/intense scenes
Starring: Mark Addy, Michelle Fairley, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Iain Glen, Aidan Gillen, Harry Lloyd, Kit Harington, Richard Madden, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Alfie Allen, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Peter Dinklage.
Creators: David Benioff (series), D. B. Weiss (series), George R. R. Martin (novels)
Written by: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, George R. R. Martin
Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones, the television series debuted in the U.S. on April 17, 2011. The production is based in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, and has also filmed in Malta, Croatia and Iceland. The show's cast is mainly British and Irish.
Highly anticipated since its early stages of development, the first season of Game of Thrones was very well received by viewers and critics.The series was picked up for a second season on April 19, 2011, two days after its premiere. It was nominated for several awards, including Outstanding Drama Series for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards and Best Television Series - Drama at the 69th Golden Globe Awards; Peter Dinklage also won both ceremonies' Best Supporting Actor award (Emmy and Golden Globes). Other accolades include an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series and an Emmy win for Outstanding Main Title Design.