HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I just got started on this series of books the other day. I like what little I've read so far. And it does seem right up HBOs alley, as it appears to be very adult, with minimal magic and creatures. More like a medieval/historical tale with elements of fantasy. Heck, even if I had never heard of the books, the idea of HBO tackling fantasy sounds very appealing.

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H

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

If anyone can do it justice it's HBO, however I'm not sure how the budget will work out. There are a few very large scale battle sequences along with several locations (a large city and a couple of other areas) that would seem to demand resources beyond even what Rome and Band of Brothers were given.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I'm not that familiar with this particular series, but this sounds interesting. It's good that HBO is getting this so things won't be "toned down".

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I've been walking on cloud nine since I heard. I've been dreaming HBO would do this since I discovered the series back in 2001. This series is my personal LOTR, and the first three are amongst my favorite books. I really hope this goes forward. I'll be watching it closely.

GRRM worked for two years to get the story to work as he had outlined, but it refused to cooperate, so he had to spend another two years rewriting material and adding one extra book. the plan for more than seven years had been six books, it only recently expanded

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

No freakin' way!! That is amazing. It was what every GRRM fan has been dreaming about. I think even Martin mentioned something like this in an interview. It would never work as a single movie, that is for sure. After their awesome and unflinching work on ROME, I can see them handling this property in the same way (violence, sex, magic, horror, and backstabbings galore). This is hip stuff.

THanks for making my day! Hope it isn't bogus.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I thought it was two extra books since the original extra "gap" book was taking too long and was too large anyway so the result was splitting the gap book into two- Feast for Crows and Dance With Dragons.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

In that case, how about filming Zelazny's Amber series?

jdg

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I don't think it's a big current bestseller like Martin's series.

I'm not a huge fantasy guy, especially when it comes to endless series, but the first book in this series (A Game Of Thrones) was really fantastic. The second was a bit more run-of-the-mill. I haven't read the third or fourth books yet.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Not to mention several set-pieces would be mind-bogglingly strange (a 1000 mile wall of ice that is 700 feet tall?), beasts that CGI would simply ruin (watch An American Werewolf In Paris and try to think how bad a direwolf might look).Then the logisitcs of having several dozen characters, many of which have identical twins, children, and 2 or three living generations (all of which are supposedly to look very similar). And to top it all off, Winter Is Coming.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Fantastic news! I love this book series and have often wondered if it would ever be turned into a mini-series or films. A full-blown HBO series is more than I could have dreamed for.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

for the entirety of the first season and most of the second the direwolves are essentially pups/yearlings, hardly full grown adults yet - that means Akitas or various other dogs could be substituted quite easily.

The wall set would be almost laughably cheap if you're not doing swoop-swoop swoop-swoop LOTR cgi camera shots. The sets could all be built in a regular stage with a greenscreen cyclorama.

The biggest challenge to the series is how to incorporate Dany, especially in the later seasons. In the first book her story is almost as long as Eddard's but since she's on an entirely separate storyline on an entirely different continent with a cast that does not overlap in the first season... That will be the biggest difficulty of adapting the series, I'm sure. It's quite an abrupt jump and there's potentially no payoff to keeping up her story for 4-6 seasons. All the other core storylines of AGOT begin when they are all converged at Winterfell. So it's easy to follow all of the threads as they separate--much like the Fellowship breaking at the end of FOTR.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

If the book is to be believed, the wall is 7x the hight of the castles that defend it. So I guess they could just film everything with a big white matte painting and call it a block of ice.

That, and the story surrounds a 13 year old girl that avoids an incestuous relationship with her brother by mostly being naked or otherwise "involved" with an 8' tall dreadlock'd mongolian. It would be like Flowers In The Attic on crack.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Maybe animation is the way to go (meaning make it a fully animated series rather than live-action).

You know, it suddenly strikes me that the title of this thread should be "A Song Of Ice And Fire," not "Fire And Ice."

Looks like it's misstated in the quoted article, too.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

HBO animated?? That might actually work! (I don't think theres been "serious" adult animation in decades).

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Variety uses shorthand in almost every article they write, even reviews.


Khal Drogo is hardly a giant. A big guy, but not a giant.

One of the first things the writers will do is probably make Dany 16-17 (which means they can cast someone who's stopped growing and is in the 19-22ish range), make Bran 11, Arya 12 and Sansa 15. Rickon may be dropped completely
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

fwiw, Martin has said that he intended there to be a five year interval between books three and four in which the children grew up, trained and matured into new roles in the post war world. Since he was unable to make the interval work despite years of effort the kids are just going to be accelerated into their roles though it will be less realistic. He's said if he knew from the beginning there would be no interval he'd have made the kids several years older to begin with. It'll probably be one of the first things he (and the producers) want to change. In the books, Dany marries Drogo when she's 13 and he's in his late twenties... in the tv series, the ages will be closer to what decent folk are willing to accept.

Adam

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

besides, everything with Khal Drogo with the exception of Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) would most likely be a flashback as well.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I don't get why that would be so at all...

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I worry about the big battle scenes, as well, especially considering how poorly they were handled...or not handled...in ROME. Granted, I LOVE ROME and felt that its approach to the material would be very well suited to the GRRM books but the battle Pharsalus (is that it?) was shot as 4 guys, wildly swinging cameras, blurry shots and yelling. Very, very low budget.

They handled it better in a quiet moment when the battle was later explained using a stick and dirt (honestly!). I don't know if that would work as well, especially for the second book. If I recall, the first book lacks that level of huge battles. That said, HBO had very large feeling battles in BAND OF BROTHERS so it can work.

Many of the larger battles really can be "faked" a bit since they aren't seen from some bird's eye level like in LOTR. They are seen directly through the eyes of one individual character so each scene would only need a smaller group of people at a time. It should be doable.

Casting will be the most fun part of this for a while. Using BAND OF BROTHERS and ROME as starting points, since I am sure there will be some cast members from one or both considering the talent and scope and who is involved with the production.

Peter Dinklage, the little person from THRESHOLD and ELF and a lot more would be phenomenal as our favorite Tyrion. I have always thought this when I have seen him on screen as he has a very commanding presence. Kevin McKidd (of ROME and TRAINSPOTTING), if messed up a little, has the scowl to do Sandor Clegane (he isn't pretty enough to be a Lannister). Ciaran Hinds (ROME and MUNICH) would be good as one of the lords, no doubt. Too stiff to play Eddard, I would think. Daddy Lannister, maybe? Stannis (Hinds would possibly make this character more enjoyable, I would think) or maybe even Roose Bolton.

Hmmm...obviously, every fan is making their own fantasy cast list but I wonder what others think would be good. Knowing HBO's penchant for getting really excellent talent (ooh...Ian McShane blonded out would be a viscious Lannister, actually) any actor of quality outside of the "big money" folks is fair game.

I know this will probably happen no earlier than the 2009-2010 season but still...it can't come soon enough.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Peter Dinklage was born to play Tyrion, I became convinced just seeing one episode of Nip Tuck. In my opinion there's no one else there that could come even close to doing as well.

For Eddard I've always had the image of Jurgen Prochnow in my mind, but he's far too old. Damian Lewis (Winters in Band of Brothers) is a few years too young, but would be outstanding in the part. I'd like them to cast an unknown or even cast against type with someone like Paul Giamatti, who unfortunatley is probably too short to convincingly wield a two handed broadsword.

Other than Ian McKellan as Tywin Lannister I've no real preference for the other roles.

adam

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Isn't he about 40 years too old?

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

I prefer Professor X over Magneto as Tywin.

You're right about Dinklage. No one else to do it except maybe Ian Holm (but, he may be too old).

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Adam:

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Anyway, this is splitting hairs. Everything we're debating gets summed up in about 2 paragraphs on Wikipedia. I somehow don't think HBO would waste an entire season on it.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Dinklage is it. Bar none. I think Stewart and those of that generation are a bit too old for Tywin's age group (though to be fair, Stewart has looked his current age since I first saw him in EXCALIBUR 20-odd years ago). I think some folks are thinking too old for even Eddard's generation. That group is probably in their late 30's or early 40's at the oldest. Tywin (the previous generation) is probably in his late 50's. In these books teenagers become "men" a lot earlier than we in our world do. Teens are married and having babies and running castles before their 20's. So people like Damien Lewis would be fine for Eddard or someone in his crew who ran off to war less than 20 years before to secure Robert at the throne.

Sure, it will most likely be a cast of mostly little or not at all known actors (on these shores, any way) but they will have some heavy hitters, I hope. Still fun to cast, though. That said, vote Kenneth Brannagh in the Baelish role.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Raasean:
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

but as you said, we're splitting hairs. You could sum up Lord of the Rings in a two paragraph wikipedia blurb and it would still be just as meaningless a standard.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

OK, I can see that... what else can we nitpick.

Re: HBO options Song of Fire and Ice

Cool, another series that HBO will start and then cancel in the middle because it's too expensive to create. Sorry, still upset with them for canceling Carnivale and Deadwood.