Game of Thrones is almost over, and every network is looking to fill the vacuum it will leave behind. Showtime is making a show based on Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle. Netflix is adapting Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels. Amazon is going all in, spending an ungodly amount of money on a Lord of the Rings series and making a Wheel of Time show in its spare time. And then there’s the stuff HBO has in the works, from the Game of Thrones prequel show to Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen show and beyond. Expensive genre shows are in.
But is pumping up the budget the right way for networks to get “the next Game of Thrones?” Speaking to The New York Times, HBO programming president Casey Bloys isn’t so sure.
"It has made everyone say, ‘O.K., where is our ‘Game of Thrones’? Which is the exact wrong way to find your next ‘Game of Thrones.’ Just to set out and say ‘Well we’re going to make our next ‘Game of Thrones,’ we’re going to do a real giant show with a huge budget,’ well that doesn’t allow for all the other things that have to go right for a show to really resonate with a viewer."
He’s got a point. Although it’s hard to think of it as an underdog show now, back when it premiered, Game of Thrones wasn’t a golden child. It had a decent budget, sure, but it was nothing like it became. You have to wonder if the next generation of splashy fantasy and sci-fi shows are putting the cart before the horse.
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That’s part of the reason why Bloys is being “deliberate” when developing HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, rather than overexposing the franchise. Still, he admits that the “bigness” of Thrones is a big part of the reason it became as popular as it did:
"‘Thrones’ was the first show that demonstrated you could produce a show with real cinematic scope. That you could think bigger — both in terms of character and drama and in special effects. That it would work, that taking shots and spending real money and putting it on the screen would pay off."
Gary Newman, the former co-chairman of the Fox Television Group, also talked about the effect Thrones has had on TV at large. “We used to have a different experience for movies and the television business,” he said. “Now you can feel it melding. I give ‘Thrones’ a lot of credit for that.”
"‘Thrones’ certainly accelerated it, raising production value to an incredible place. That used to be reserved just for HBO and that’s clearly no longer the case. Netflix and Amazon and now even the broadcast networks and the big cable networks like an FX, TNT are doing it. They’re all realizing they have to raise their game with things that feel more epic and with greater scope to compete with what HBO and other premium services are doing."
Personally, I’m really looking to seeing how the post-Thrones generation of tentpole shows holds up. Will someone actually find “the next Game of Thrones,” whatever that is, or will these shows collapse under their own weight? Maybe a little of both?
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