Game of Thrones has a couple more seasons left in it, and then HBO must bid goodbye to its biggest moneymaker. Even if nothing is set in stone yet, you can bet that executives are thinking about ways to keep the series alive through spinoffs and prequels.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with HBO programming president Casey Bloys at the Westworld premiere to talk about what a Game of Thrones spinoff might look like. “There are so many properties and areas to go to,” he said. “For us, it’s about finding the right take with the right writer.”
Longtime fans of the series will agree with Bloys so far as the abundance of material is concerned. Game of Thrones is dense by television standards, but it’s not nearly as detailed as its source material, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin himself is open the idea of a spinoff. “I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to Game of Thrones,” he at the Emmys. “So there’s a wealth of material there and I’m still writing more.”
Fans like the idea of a spinoff, too—a petition for a prequel series based on Robert’s Rebellion has thousands of signatures. Martin, meanwhile, has endorsed the idea of a Dunk and Egg spinoff. However, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who created and run the show from day to day, don’t seem as enthusiastic. Benioff also weighed in on the spinoff question at the Emmys. “It’s a great world George created and a very rich world,” he said. “I’m sure there will be other series set in Westeros, but for us this is it.”
That sounds pretty final, but Bloys nurses the hope that he might get his talent to come around.
"You’re getting them right when they’re about to embark on production. It’s a big, big commitment for them, not just their creative force, but also their family life. They’re gone for months at a time. So it’s a big, big thing. But should we find a property that makes sense as a spinoff or a prequel — whatever you want to say — I would not expect them to do it, because they’re going to need to decompress for a good amount of time, but it would certainly be nice to have their involvement in some way. At what level? I have no idea."
After generating a ton of buzz with Game of Thrones, Benioff and Weiss can pretty much be as involved or uninvolved as they want. The question is whether HBO would go ahead without them.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JULY 30: Casey Bloys speaks onstage during the 2016 Television Critics Association Summer Tour. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Is there anything in the works at the moment? “Not yet,” Bloys said.
"There are things that sound interesting, but at this point, we have no writers assigned or anything like that. In a perfect world, Game of Thrones would keep going, and we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this!"