Yesterday, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss said that they’re hoping to wrap Game of Thrones up in 73 episodes, seven fewer episodes than a lot of fans were hoping for, and probably several years fewer than HBO wants. Now, they revealed to Entertainment Weekly that, at the moment, they’re not thinking about spinoff opportunities, either. “The job at hand is too enormous and challenging to be further diffusing ourselves by thinking about spin-offs, and theme park rides, and ice ballets,” said Weiss, “but if anybody has a good pitch for a good Game of Thrones ice ballet, let us know.”
Game of Thrones has become a giant hit for HBO, and it’s not unheard of for giant series to produce spin-offs, theme parks, ice ballets, and the like. Harry Potter is a great example—a new Potter theme park just opened in Hollywood, and spin-off movie series Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will debut in theaters later this year. Now, Game of Thrones doesn’t lent itself to a theme park the same way Harry Potter does, but if developers can figure out a way to turn The Hunger Games into a theme park, they can make it work for Thrones.
HBO president Michael Lombardo agreed that there are no Game of Thrones spin-offs on the horizon.
"If that were to happen it would have to come from [Benioff and Weiss] really feeling something, or [author George R.R. Martin] really feeling that it was the right thing to do. Not knowing how this particular story ends, I don’t know. There are plenty of characters, secondary characters, [that] you could build a world around. We’re always going to be drawn to a strong creative vision. But we are not going to do that unless we feel their passion."
Anyone familiar with Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire knows there’s plenty of material on which a spin-off could be based. The world has a rich history, and we can imagine a show or movie set at some point in the past to be terrific, Also, there’s a wealth of characters who could probably sustain their own show, something Benioff contemplated back when making Season 3. “We could easily write a show about just, say, Bronn [Jerome Flynn] – The Bronn Show,” he said. “We could do a great half-hour comedy with Sam [John Bradley] and Gilly [Hannah Murray]. It’s an embarrassment of riches. There are so many great characters and you want to spend more time with them.”
But for now, spin-offs are not being contemplated.