For two guys that seemingly have wanted to avoid talking about “Game of Thrones” since the finale aired in May, David Benioff and DB Weiss were pretty damn talkative during a recent panel at the Austin Film Festival. While there, the creative duo behind HBO’s biggest series to date, and the winningest show in Primetime Emmys history, opened up about the challenges of adapting George R.R. Martin’s novel series. And honestly, after reading about the panel, you can’t help but wonder if maybe they should have stayed quiet.
Unfortunately, there’s no video from the panel, but Twitter user Needle & Pen (whose account has been confirmed to be accurate) paraphrased and live-tweeted the event, and in doing so, has given fans who were critical of Benioff and Weiss in the past plenty of ammunition to use against the duo and the series, as a whole.
Perhaps when your ability as writers is being questioned, you shouldn’t admit that you were surprised your pitch was actually approved by HBO and Martin. But Benioff and Weiss said that they were shocked that they ended up getting a pilot order and eventually a season order because “we really didn’t have any [credits]” prior to ‘Thrones.’
They were quoted as saying, “We had never done TV and we didn’t have any. We don’t know why [Martin] trusted us with his life’s work.”
The creative duo described the experience of creating “Game of Thrones” as an “expensive film school” for them, as they didn’t have opportunities to work on set with people like costume designers before.
One of the more damning comments came after it was revealed that HBO forced the guys to pad out their episodes in Season 1 because they were only clocking in around 39 minutes in length. The duo went back and shot an additional 100 minutes of footage to be used in the series, and they admit that they didn’t really “understand” the characters until they were given the chance to go back and film more. Weiss said that they allowed the actors, particularly Maisie Williams, to alter their characters and make them their own, and in doing so, the actors were able to teach the writers more about the characters.
When asked why they didn’t hire a writer’s room for the series (as is commonplace in large series), the duo admitted, “Because we didn’t know better.” They said that HBO asked them to bring in more writers, so they allowed their assistant, Brian Cogman, to pen several episodes.
From there, Benioff and Weiss continue to talk about the trials and tribulations of working on ‘Thrones.’ If you want the full account, you should definitely check out the Twitter thread below. Long story short, if you ever thought to yourself, “Gosh, these guys don’t really understand George R.R. Martin’s work” and were the first to criticize Benioff and Weiss, then you’ll likely want to smash your head into a wall after reading the thread.
But hey, for those that aren’t fans of the duo, you’ll be happy to know that they are far, far away from the multiple spin-offs of “Game of Thrones” that HBO is currently developing.
https://twitter.com/ForArya/status/1188186578071556102
https://twitter.com/cuneform/status/1188695188740476928
