After receiving confirmation that the show live to see a third season, the producers on HBO’s hit fantasy series Game Of Thrones have begun talking about their plans for the future. D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who created and also act as executive producers on the show, spoke about how they plan on adapting the rest of the novels in George R.R. Martin’s epic best-selling fantasy series.
“Well… A Storm of Swords is too long to fit in a single season. And as readers know, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons takes place during roughly the same time frame, so we’ll have to fold those together. The plan, if we’re lucky enough to be given the opportunity to see it through, is to use as many seasons as we need to tell the story as a whole, to do justice to George’s entire opus,” said Weiss.
“We’re not looking at our series as a book-by-book adaptation so much as an adaptation of George’s entire saga,” continued Benioff. “In other words, in our minds season two is not A Clash of Kings. It is the second season of our adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Being a huge fan of Games Of Thrones I really like the position that they’re taking. Weiss points out that they want to do justice to George’s opus and to do so, they’ll use as many seasons as they need. Benioff reinforces that by saying that it’s not a book-by-book adaptation. Both of these things are reassuring to fans as it means that the producers, above all else, want to stay loyal to the source material.
If they were simply matching up the books with the seasons, fans would get upset. If this were the case, Weiss and Benioff would have to try and squeeze each book into one season and likely, a lot of material would be left out. By allowing themselves to spread it all out and take their time, they can fill the show with all the material they want and not have to worry about the constraints of a single season.
Game of Thrones is currently in its second season and things are off to a great start. The show is a bonafide hit and it’s amongst the best television that is currently on the air.
It’s nice to see that the producers want to stay loyal to the novels and hopefully, they’ll maintain this mentality for the show’s entire run.