14 DAY TRIAL // Because anticipation for season 4 of “Game of Thrones” couldn’t possibly get any bigger, George R.R. Martin, who penned the “Song of Ice and Fire” the series is based on, just came up with a novel way of giving the fans a heart attack: a feature film will probably be made, he teases.
Considering he’s not even done writing the last novels in the series, Martin sure is toying with fans’ emotions here, if I do say so myself.
“It all depends on how long the main series runs. Do we run for seven years? Do we run for eight? Do we run for 10? The books get bigger and bigger (in scope). It might need a feature to tie things up, something with a feature budget, like $100 million [€72.6 million] for two hours. Those dragons get real big, you know,” Martin tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Even better than this hint is knowing that there might be some truth to it. Producers on the HBO show have already told the media that they have no intention of dragging the series for more than 8 seasons, mostly for practical reasons: actors are aging, so the shooting schedule is very tight because they can’t afford to allow them extended breaks.
You can use makeup and light tricks to shoot an already adult actor playing the same character years after it was first introduced to audiences and pretend the character didn’t age, but it’s hard to do the same in the case of the much younger characters, the children in the story. And HBO obviously can’t shoot more than one season per year because of the complexity of the project.
The producers already know how Martin plans to wrap up all the stories in the final books, so it’s not like they’d have to wait until they’re out to do the series. Assuming HBO is done with “GoT” after 8 seasons, this would also leave a small window for a movie, if everything else was planned in advance thoroughly and production starts right after shooting the series wraps.
Fans would stand to win a lot from this because a film would probably manage to include some plot lines they know from the books but didn’t get to see in the series. However, that’s a very distant possibility: for the time being, we have the premiere of season 4 to look forward to, on April 6.
Of course, everyone else involved would also stand to win because there would be big money involved: right now, “Game of Thrones” is the most popular series airing on TV and Martin’s books also boast a very loyal following online.