George R.R. Martin pitches his own idea for a Game of Thrones spinoff
By Corey Smith
HBO’s unnamed Game of Thrones prequel series has been picking up steam lately, casting Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse in lead roles as production on the Jane Goldman-penned pilot draws near. Speaking to The New York Times, George R.R. Martin weighed in on the show that he thinks of as The Long Night, although HBO has politely reminded him that there is no official title yet.
The show is set during the Age of Heroes, thousands of years before the events of the main story, which made for some interesting exchanges when Martin sat down with Goldman to sketch out ideas. “If you look at the published books so far, there’s really very little material about that — a sentence here, a sentence there,” Martin reminds us. “Old Nan tells a tale that takes up a paragraph.”
"So Jane had to create the characters, the settings and some of the events, and we had to look at everything that was said and say, “O.K., here’s what was said at this point, we need to make it consistent to that.” We kicked around some ideas and I made some suggestions. But mostly it’s been Jane running with it. It’s set thousands of years before “Game of Thrones.” King’s Landing does not exist. The Iron Throne does not exist. There are no dragons there."
No Iron Throne? No dragons? Things are different 10 thousand years back. What about ice spiders big as hounds? “There might be!” Martin laughed. “I will say nothing about that. Maybe the ice spiders were just a legend!”
Ice Spiders confirmed.
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More interesting may be Martin’s pitch for an entirely separate Game of Thrones spinoff show. This one has a revealed his idea for a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead vibe going for it:
"I wanted to do a show called “Spear Carriers,” which would actually be set during the events of “Game of Thrones,” but it wouldn’t be following Dany, Tyrion and Jaime. They would all be there in the background like Hamlet, and it would be more like, “Here’s a story about a guy in the City Watch; here’s a story about a prostitute at one of Littlefinger’s brothels; here’s a story about a mummer who’s in town to do juggling and tricks.” And they all get caught up in the events. I think that kind of show would be a lot of fun to do. Maybe I’ll be able to convince them to do it!"
We are 1000% on board with this idea. Give us the further adventures of Hot Pie, or let us finally meet that cock merchant they talked about in “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.” What is that guy’s weird life?
Martin also discussed SyFy’s upcoming adaptation of his 1980 novella Nightflyers. Initially, Martin was confused by the idea. “Wait a minute!” he remembered thinking. “How can they make a TV series? No one purchased any rights from me!” But then he read the fine print in the original 1984 contract, the one he signed before Nightflyers was turned into a movie, and realized it also included the TV rights.
And that ended up being okay for two reasons. First, the Nightflyers movie got Martin out of debt at a time when his writing career was going through a rough patch. “Everything I’ve written since exists in no small part because of that film.” And second, the film itself looks delightfully schlocky, ’80s-style:
Martin also gave us a preview of the story’s more liberated view on sex. Apparently, in the future of Nightflyers, it’s a pretty casual affair:
"Well, you know, I wrote that after the sexual revolution and the hippies. I think it’s a healthy attitude, and hopefully it will arrive someday in the future here! That was certainly my intent, to portray how sex can be more casual. It can be, “Oh, I had sex with Bill.” Like, “Oh, I had dinner with Bill.” Why do the two have to be so different? If you’re married to Fred and you have dinner with Bill, Fred doesn’t care. But if you say you had sex with Bill, suddenly it’s divorce and trauma. Why? I don’t know. It’s part of our religious upbringing, a legacy of past centuries. But 400 years in the future, when “Nightflyers” was first set, it would certainly be a very different attitude."
So there’s insight into Martin’s views on life you can carry with you this weekend.
The trailers for Nightflyers do look pretty cool, though. The show premieres on SyFy on December 2.
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