George R.R. Martin's short film Mary-Margaret Road Grader to screen at Wasteland Film Festival

A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin took to his Not A Blog this week with more updates, and as is mandated by the old gods and the new, we are here to discuss them. Last week Martin published a post announcing that he'd returned from his month-long trip to Europe, where he visited the set of the Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in Belfast, attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, and more. He also said that he would soon be airing some grievances about House of the Dragon season 2 in the near future.

This blog post, titled "September Morn," doesn't get into the nitty-gritty for House of the Dragon. Instead it's a much more cheerful update, all about the short films Martin has been producing based on the works of author Howard Waldrop. One of them, Mary-Margaret Road Grader, will be screening at several film festivals in the coming months.

Martin discussed how novelist and screenwriter Joe Lansdale was in Santa Fe recently for a screening of The Thicket, a new movie based on his 2013 book of the same name. It stars Game of Thrones veteran Peter Dinklage and Yellowjackets' Juliette Lewis. The Thicket is due out in theaters on September 6, but it had an early premiere at Martin's Jean Cocteau theater in Santa Fe, with a larger premiere following in Los Angeles.

"The Santa Fe audience seemed to like the film, as did I," Martin said. "It’s a western, but the sort of western only Joe could write, dark and twisty and filled with a cast of colorful characters. Dinklage and Lewis were both excellent. If you’re a fan of the Old West, be sure and catch THE THICKET when it turns up at a cinema near you."

Martin doesn't have any particular connection to The Thicket itself, but he's worked with Lansdale plenty in the past. Lansdale penned the screenplay for Night of the Cooters, the first Howard Waldrop short film that Martin produced back in 2021.

That's a great segue to talk about more of those Howard Waldrop short films! "And speaking of movies, we are moving along with the short films we made based on some of the short stories by the late, great, great great great, Howard Waldrop. Steven Paul Judd’s adaptation of MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER has been accepted into WASTELAND, deep in the heart of the Mohave Desert," Martin wrote.

Wasteland Weekend is a big event out in the desert which celebrates post-apocalyptic media and its impact on popular culture. The Wasteland Film Festival is only one part of the larger gathering, which includes various other forms of entertainment and events as you live out your post-apocalyptic fantasies. This feels like a perfect spot to screen Mary-Margaret Road Grader, which is about a post-apocalyptic Native American society where souped up Mad Maxian tractor pulls are used to establish clout among rival drivers. You can watch the trailer for it at the top of this article.

Wasteland takes places from September 25th to September 29th. Mary-Margaret Road Grade will also be screened at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in New Zealand in early October, so it's got a few dates lined up now. Martin promised there are more on the way, both for Road Grader as well as his other new Howard Waldrop short, The Ugly Chickens, which stars Felicia Day as an ornithologist on the hunt for extinct dodos.

"There will be more, I am sure; festival season is just beginning, and we’ve entered MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS in other festivals all around the country and the world. Watch this space; I’ll announce other show dates and locations as soon as we know."

- George R.R. Martin on his Not A Blog

George R.R. Martin has more short films in the works

Beyond all the good news for Mary-Margaret Road Grader, Martin also took a minute to update his fans on the future of these short film projects. So far he's done three of them, but he's not done. More are on the way.

"Two other shorts are still in post production here in New Mexico;  another Waldrop, with the working title FRIENDS FOREVER (that is likely to be changed), and an original called THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a story I pitched THE TWILIGHT ZONE back in the 80s, just before it was cancelled," Martin wrote. "SUMMER MACHINE stars Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith, and Matt Frewer. Michael Cassutt wrote the short, based on my treatment, and directed as well."

The most interesting thing about that update to me is that one of the forthcoming short films is an original. So far, all of these short films Martin has produced in recent years have been based on the works of his friend and fellow author Howard Waldrop. But now it sounds like Martin is starting to stretch his legs into some of his own material, and that could have exciting implications for the future.

But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Martin has a lot of experience with the ups and downs of film production, and he knows better than most that it's best not to count your chickens before they hatch. "We have several other movies under option or in development, but whether any of them will ever get filmed, well, I really couldn’t tell you," he wrote. "It’s Hollywood, boys and girls. "As the late great William Goldman once wrote, 'Nobody Knows Anything.'"

For now, film festivals are the only way to see George R.R. Martin's Howard Waldrop short films, so if you're in an area where one is playing make sure to go check them out! And if you're curious about the original Howard Waldrop short stories, you can also read both Mary-Margaret Road Grader and The Ugly Chickens online at Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld, respectively.

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