Sean Bean plays A Game of Thrones

George R R Martin fans time to get excited.

Sean Bean has signed up to star in A Game of Thrones for HBO, the first in the Song of Ice And Fire series of novels by George RR Martin, which the channel is adapting for the screen. He's set to play the lead, Eddard Stark, with Mark Addy said to be on the verge of signing on as King Robert Baratheon of Westeros.

The tricksy-turny series starts as the King and his family come to visit the Starks' home. Eddard is pressurised by his old friend Robert to return South with him and act as the King's adviser - something that Robert's in-laws, the Lannister family, are unlikely to take kindly to.

Add in a spot of conspiracy, incest, child murder, corruption, conspiracy and conspiracy - not to mention a rival claimant to the throne across the sea, the still-festering legacy of a civil war 20 years before, a growing threat in the North from...something and the prospect of a winter lasting several years on its way, and you've got a fantasy with little or no magic but a heck of a lot of intrigue. Think Deadwood with broadswords and maybe - maybe - less swearing.

Kit Harrington (from WarHorse, on the London stage) will play Jon Snow, Stark's bastard son*; Jack Gleeson (the fear-afflicted little boy in Batman Begins) will play Robert's cowardly son, Prince Joffrey; and Harry Lloyd (Will Scarlett in TV's Robin Hood) will play Viserys, the dethroned crown prince now in exile and manoeuvering his child sister into a marriage that could restore his fortunes. Peter Dinklage is already aboard as Tyrion Lannister, the sinister and deformed brother-in-law of the King.

Tom McCarthy is directing from a script by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Source: Empire

HOME

The Game of Thrones begins

Tom McCarthy has come aboard to direct HBO's fantasy pilot Game of Thrones, on which the star of his first feature, The Station Agent's Peter Dinklage, has been tapped for a key role according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on George R.R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire novels, "Thrones" is described as an epic struggle for power set in a vast and violent fantasy kingdom. Dinklage will play Tyrion, the Queen's brother who is treated as an outsider because of his size.

"Thrones" is to begin filming this autumn in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in what the country's First Minister Peter Robinson hails as "the first TV production of such vast size and scale that has been filmed in Northern Ireland."

"Thrones" marks the first TV directorial gig for McCarthy, an actor who wrote and directed two features, 2003's "Station Agent" and 2007's "The Visitor," both of which landed him Indie Spirit Awards. On the acting side, McCarthy next appears in 2012.

McCarthy is a bit of an odd choice to direct this piece of fantasy as his previous work has revolved about quirky stories set in the here and now. Mind you, both his features have been excellent little movies and he may bring a different style to the proceedings that will hopefully make this something a bit special.

Leave a comment on this post below.

HOME

George R R Martin's A Game of Thrones to be HBO Fantasy series

Paul will be happy about this one. He lent me the first in the series and I thought it was excellent. This from /film

HBO has given the greenlight to film a pilot based on George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy novel series A Song of Fire and Ice. The show will be titled A Game of Thrones, named after the first novel in the series. Martin has planned seven books in the series, and the plan is to turn each book into a full season of television.

David Benioff (25th Hour, Troy), who is executive producing the series with D.B. Weiss (I Am Legend Prequel), says that “High fantasy has never been done on TV before and if anybody can do it, it’s HBO. They’ve taken tired genres and reinvented them — mobsters in The Sopranos and Westerns with Deadwood.” While supernatural and sci-fi have boomed in recent years, it does seem extremely odd that the fantasy genre hasn’t been tried in primetime, especially considering the huge box office and critical success of the Lord of the Rings films. The only fantasy television series that comes to mind is Xena: Princess Warrior, and that was syndicated and… uh, bad.

Sure, dragons, magic, and even swords cost money (Thrones has all three), but in the last decade sci-fi television shows have pushed the boundaries in the visual effects department. The producers claim that Thrones is more character centric, and most of the action takes place off screen - a formula that has worked well for Battlestar Galactica.

A Game of Thrones was published in 1996, nominated for 1998 Nebula Award and the 1997 World Fantasy Award, and won the 1997 Locus Award. The official plot description follows:

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

A Game of Thrones has also been turned into a successful board game and CCG. Who would you like to see playing the various characters? Fans of the books do you feel it would be a good TV series?
HOME / FORUM.