After almost two years of work on the opening scripts, HBO has officially greenlighted production of a pilot for their 12-episode adaption of A Game of Thrones, the first volume of George RR Martin's internationally-bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.

 

George RR Martin will serve as a producer, although he will take a hands-off approach as he works on the final two-and-a-bit novels in the book series. He has an option of writing one episode per season, which he may or may not exercise depending on how work on the books go. With the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons, nearing completion it is likely IMO he will pen an episode of A Game of Thrones at least.

 

The series showrunners will be David Benioff and DB Weiss. Benioff - who wrote the initial script for the Wolverine movie - is currently regarded as one of the hottest writers in Hollywood. Benioff and Weiss will script all of the other episodes and according to GRRM himself, they will be very faithful to the books (i.e., no introduction of superfluous new characters or making each episode stand-alone for no reason).

 

At the moment HBO has comissioned a pilot, which they are co-funding with the BBC (the BBC and HBO's previous joint projects were the excellent Rome and the superlative Band of Brothers). The pilot will likely be filmed in Eastern Europe, Ireland or New Zealand (although after a recent flurry of movies and series being made in NZ, HBO are apparently not as keen on it as they once were). No word on casting just yet.

I love this news so much that I ate it, regurgitated it and ate it again. 

Heh, Raena told me about this earlier, was practically bouncing off of my seat in excitement. Now if he'd just finish that stupid book... and by stupid I mean hurry up! I can't get enough of it!

Whee! And they can come film it here, like they did Narnias Caspian.

I love this news so much I didn't even wince when Empy regurgitated it and then ate it again. I'm so glad HBO has it, I trust them to do a good job, even considering how many storylines are going on at once.

So lets me naughty and do that casting excersize.  Who would you cast as who?

Roy Dotrice, who has been friends with GRRM since they worked on Beauty and the Beast together (yup, GRRM is partially responsible for introducing Ron Perlman to the world), has been informed :) He's a fan of the books and did the audio readings of the first three volumes.

 

He's 85 now, so he's probably not up to anything too rigorous, but I'd mark him down as a possible Walder Frey or Maester Aemon.

Brad Pitt as Jaemie

Angelina Jolie as Cersei heheh

 

 

 

complete unknowns for the entire wolf offspring, save the mom and dad:

Nicole Kidman as Kaethryn

Liam Neeson as erm, the dad, what's his name... :P

 

 

Someone superb for Tyrion. Not dany de vito :P

See, I was thinking Nicole Kidman for Cersei... She's got the superblonde, ice queen thing down pat.

I could see Sam Morse as Eddard for some reason. 

Surely you mean Sam Neill, of Jurassic Park and Hunt for Red October, not Sam Morse, inventor of the telegraph??

David Morse... whatever. :P

These news made me very happy!

 

Also, I shouldn't be here?

 

Hmm.

 

Tilda Swinton as Cersei <.<

 

 

shouldn't be here?  Anyone can post in any thread here.

Ah, that makes me feel good

 

But yeah, in my head I always imagined Cersei as Tilda Swinton, and Jaime as Basch from final fantasy XII (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/jessomatickilla/basch-headercopy.png)

 

Does that make sense? They don't look that much like each other, come to think of it. And the latter isn't an actor. But heck, that's my $0,02.

Woohoo, happy news!! And the best bit is the BBC have a stake in it too, which means they'll show it in Britain too. ;D

 

As for casting, I'd think I'd rather see a lot of new talent in the roles. I just can't picture any famous people in the roles.

SD could play Tyrion... ;D

I am SO excited about this news!

 

And the fact that the BBC is involved makes me SO happy! It will be shown on BBC and I can make ALL my friends and family watch it so they can understand the awesome!  ;D

I thought about Nicole Kidman as Cersei too, but she's a bit too old to play Cersei.

 

 

That chick from American beauty, the black haired one, she'd make a cool Daenerys I think. Also, another chick from Donie darko, she could play Dae as well.

bump this back to the first page, since its still supposed to be new and all.

Yeah, I was going to get to that with some of the other newer threads.  :P

Its pretty easy, check page 4, thats where everything that should be on the front page is.

I know, I started to pull them up but I've been on and off the phone at work all afternoon, so I haven't had time to actually get to it. Thanks for helping!

you could have left it for a day at least, sports spirit and all tha crap :P  ;D

I've been hearing about this since before the Writer's strike, but knowing it's officially been greenlighted makes me so happy that I'm bouncing in my chair and I have a huge smile on my face :D I do hope they get mostly fresh actors in there, with a few well known actors. I just hope they don't massacre it...definitely interested in seeing Tyrion the most lol and can't wait to see who they pick for Jon, too.