HBO Auditions ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’

As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, HBO has finally ordered a pilot for George R . R. Martin’s “Song Of Ice And Fire” fantasy book series. So far four books of a proposed seven have been published with the fifth tentatively scheduled for mid 2009. Should a series be okayed the plan is to produce one novel per each, presumably, thirteen episode season. This might seem excessive until you factor in that each novel so far has a page count of 800-1000 pages. In hardback. The pilot will be executive produced by David Benioff (Troy) and D.B. Weiss (Halo) with a script presumably by Martin. Martin has previously worked in television, most notably overseeing the modern fairy tale series Beauty and the Beast starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. The pilot, named after the first novel “A Game of Thrones”, will be competing against nine other pilots for a spot on HBO’s schedule and I sincerely hope it does very well.

The series, while fantasy, is more based on medieval history than magic and mysticism, although that element is starting to return to the lands that serve as the setting. What I really like about this series is that there are no black and white characters. Allegiances change and characters shift from good to bad, or vice versa, depending on what they experience and/or learn over the course of the series. Also, don’t expect any character to be safe from death. There have been some truly shocking deaths in the books, but they all fit within the context of the greater story and are not done gratuitously. There is much political intrigue, fierce battles, characters rising to the occasion, lives lost, secrets revealed, foreboding mysteries coming to light – all written superbly by Martin. I’m going to get a lot of flak for this, but I will say right now that not only is “A Song Of Ice And Fire” the best fantasy series since “Lord Of The Rings”, there are also quite a few ways in which it surpasses Tokien’s tale. Although, to be fair to both authors, “Rings” is definitely more entrenched in mythology than “Ice And Fire.” It appears that Martin will be contributing scripts to the possible series, so it will be interesting to see how closely the show adheres to the printed version. As always, stayed tuned to Pop Culture Zoo for more information on this as we get it!