HBO Plans Up To Five Game Of Thrones Spinoffs
HBO has a problem. Game of Thrones is about to end, and it won’t be easy to replace.
“About to end” is relative here, as though there are just six episodes yet to come, we won’t see any of them until 2019. It gives HBO a little time to think about their next move. Right now, Game of Thrones is the star attraction of Home Box Office’s lineup, and no amount of pretentious Sorkin dramas can fill the gap it leaves.
Easiest solution: spinoffs! “It feels like corporate malfeasance to not continue it,” says Francesca Orsi, HBO’s senior VP of drama. Orsi said today the country’s oldest cable channel has up to five GoT spinoff ideas in the development stage, from producers as varied as Max Borenstein (Kong: Skull Island), Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass), Brian Helgeland (Legend) and Carly Wray (The Leftovers).
They may not produce that many. Which spinoffs they go with depends on the strength of each, but they’re prepared to pour CASH into making them look good. “$50 million (per season) would never fly for what we are trying to do. We are going big,” Orsi said.
As for news on the original, Orsi said she’d been to a table read recently that “was a really powerful moment in our lives and our careers. None of the cast had received the scripts prior, and one by one they started to fall down to their deaths. By the end, the last few words on the final script, the tears just started falling down. Then there was applause that lasted 15 minutes.” There you have it: in the final Game of Thrones, everybody dies. Uh, spoilers….