Series author George R.R. Martin has weighed in to clarify HBO’s preliminary plans for a Game of Thrones prequel series, all the while confirming that a fifth pilot script is now officially in the mix.
Taking to his personal blog, Martin stressed that any serialized extension of A Song of Ice and Fire will exist in a “secondary universe,” and that each pitch currently under consideration has been aligned as prequels to the core Westeros saga. As the founding father of Game of Thrones, it’s not all that surprising to hear that George R.R. Martin is working closely with the screenwriters on HBO’s shortlist – namely Max Borenstein (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Jane Goldman (Kingsman: The Golden Circle), Brian Helgeland and Carly Wray – though the author stopped short of identifying the scribe behind this mysterious fifth script. It is a male writer though, judging by Martin’s blog.
We had four scripts in development when I arrived in LA last week, but by the time I left we had five. We have added a fifth writer to the original four. No, I will not reveal the name here. HBO announced the names of the first four, and will no doubt announce the fifth as well, once his deal has closed. He’s a really terrific addition, however, a great guy and a fine writer, and aside from me and maybe Elio and Linda, I don’t know anyone who knows and loves Westeros as well as he does.
Further in the post, George R.R. Martin then pinpointed the ways in which these embryonic scripts are woven into the Game of Thrones universe.
For what it’s worth, I don’t especially like the term “spinoff,” and I don’t think it really applies to these new projects. What we’re talking about are new stories set in the “secondary universe” (to borrow Tolkien’s term) of Westeros and the world beyond, the world I created for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE… None of these new shows will be ‘spinning off’ from GOT in the traditional sense. We are not talking Joey or AfterMASH or even Frazier or Lou Grant, where characters from one show continue on to another. So all of you who were hoping for the further adventures of Hot Pie are doomed to disappointment. Every one of the concepts under discussion is a prequel, rather than a sequel. Some may not even be set on Westeros. Rather than ‘spinoff’ or ‘prequel,’ however, I prefer the term ‘successor show.’ That’s what I’ve been calling them.
But if you’re crossing your fingers in anticipation of an offshoot relating to the Tales of Dunk and Egg, we have some disappointing news; neither Dunk and Egg nor Robert’s Rebellion have been earmarked for an adaptation.
We’re not doing Dunk & Egg. Eventually, sure, I’d love that, and so would many of you. But I’ve only written and published three novellas to date, and there are at least seven or eight or ten more I want to write. We all know how slow I am, and how fast a television show can move. I don’t want to repeat what happened with GAME OF THRONES itself, where the show gets ahead of the books. When the day comes that I’ve finished telling all my tales of Dunk & Egg, then we’ll do a tv show about them… but that day is still a long ways off.
We’re not doing Robert’s Rebellion either. I know thousands of you want that, I know there’s a petition… but by the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert’s Rebellion. There would be no surprises or revelations left in such a show, just the acting out of conflicts whose resolutions you already know. That’s not a story I want to tell just now; it would feel too much like a twice-told tale.
It’s still early days, then, but don’t be fooled into thinking that Game of Thrones season 8 will signal the last hurrah for George R.R. Martin’s fantastical saga. Meanwhile, the show’s seventh season will be with us on July 16th.
