By In a new profile piece in The Wall Street Journal, former “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have finally spoken about their original plan for ending the HBO series.
In 2020, author George R.R. Martin revealed there was once a plan to end the show with a film trilogy that would be released in cinemas. The trilogy covered what would ultimately become the thirteen-episode seventh and eighth seasons.
So why was this plan scrapped? Benioff says network executives were not interested in a “Thrones” film and he was reminded by them that “HBO stands for ‘Home Box Office’ and not ‘Away Box Office’.”
The piece includes a chilling story about HBO’s then-owners, AT&T, as executives from the telco reportedly once asked if the series could be “shot vertically so it would fit on your phone”.
The company also reportedly openly discussed the idea of Quibi-esque “snackable mini-episodes” of the series for those with short attention spans.
They’re among the reasons the pair left HBO for Netflix after “Thrones” ended. Benioff says: “When you sign a five-year deal with a company, you want that company to be stable so you can be left alone to do your work and not have to worry about it being bought by the phone company. Finding the smoothest ride in the ocean was key.”
Benioff and Weiss have since been working on the big budget sci-fi series “3 Body Problem” which will launch March 21st on Netflix.
The talk comes as today Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav revealed during an earnings call that the next ‘Thrones’ spin-off series, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight,” is eyeing a late 2025 premiere on HBO.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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