Rocky marriage. That’s the only way HBO Chief Casey Bloys can describe what it’s like to work with the talented (and often unpredictable) creator that is George R.R. Martin.
While talking about HBO’s upcoming slate at a press conference Tuesday, Bloys was asked to weigh in about the sometimes challenging task of working with Martin. It hit a particularly uncomfortable point at the end of season 2 of House of the Dragon, with Martin threatening to spill some tea on his blog about “what went wrong” on the Game of Thrones prequel.
Martin ended up deleting the post while HBO put out a statement that said, “There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
On Tuesday, Bloys expanded on those thoughts by saying that, of course, he would like to keep Martin happy.
“He’s very important to me, to us,” he told reporters. “But when we put shows together, it’s like putting a marriage together. Marriages can be difficult, especially when Ryan Condal is making creative decisions and adapting work. It can be fraught. Any marriage can get rocky. I would prefer everybody get along, of course. But with the creative process, we are always going to have bumps. That’s to be expected.”
In other, more depressing news, Bloys once again confirmed that a GOT spinoff featuring Kit Harington’s Jon Snow is not happening. “We develop a lot of ideas. Sometimes they don’t work. We all agreed it didn’t come together, Maybe we’ll try again.”