Second Season confirmed

[Raven]

HBO renews 'Game of Thrones' for second season! | Inside TV | EW.com

Winter is coming — back!

HBO has renewed its fantasy series Game of Thrones after airing only one episode. The show’s second season will premiere next year and will be based on George R.R. Martin’s next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings.

“We are delighted by the way David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have brought George R.R. Martin’s amazing book series to the screen, and thrilled by the support of the media and our viewers,” said Michael Lombardo, president of HBO. “This is the continuation of an exciting creative partnership.”

Not unexpected but very good news.

 

[Ursa major]

Excellent news.


* Returns to waiting for the Season 1 DVDs. *

 

[Lenny]

I wonder if it will be shown under the title "Game of Thrones"? I've not yet read the second book (in the post, so should be here tomorrow), but from what I've gathered, it's going to be another game involving thrones, so I don't suppose it will matter much.

Assuming this series (Over 4 million viewers for the first episode, so it's looking good!) and the second do well, and a third series is commissioned, would the title "Game of Thrones" still lend itself to the goings on in the book (which gives me another though about a possible Storm of Swords adaptation - two series for the one book, perhaps? From all accounts, it's huge).

 

[TK-421]

This is outstanding news.

My guess they will not change the name of the show to avoid confusing viewers.

 

[Ursa major]

And apart from anything else, the main focus of the books has stayed on the game of thrones, even though the players may change from time to time.

GRRM's title for his series of books does suggest a (much) wider scope, and one has to assume that evidence of this will multiply as ASoIaF draws to a close.

 

[viZion]

In another thread Werthead said the name of the series will not change. Come on, TK, you should have been all over that!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Was just about to post this in the TV series board, then realised it invited too much discussion of future books.

A really good comment on the Winter is Coming announcement page, though:
http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/04/hbo-renews-game-of-thrones-for-second-season/

What characters to profile in season #2 and which to downplay and ignore? The writing here is problematic. The production concerns for the Battle of the Blackwater are also real. This isn’t Lord of the Rings or Master and Commander. There are real limits as to what kinds of battle GoT can depict on the air and stay within budget.

Even if GoT gets 12 episodes to work with instead of 10 in season 2 (which has not been decided upon), there will be a need to make REAL and very hard choices. There are new character to deal with, but worse, there are current characters to deal with as well. In the novels, Jaime and Robb essentially drop out of the story. Robb is offscreen for moct of CoK and Jaime vanishes for all but one scene.

Is that what D&D want to do with Richard Madden and NCW? All to include more of Brienne, the Greyjoys, Davos, Ramsay Snow, Stannis et al? I’ll say it here and open myself up to attacks for saying it: I don’t think so. TV is not a novel. D&D are going to have to invent material for Jaime and Robb and that will necessarily detract fomr the time available to the NEW characters introduced in CoK.

So. There will have to be real choices made here and wholesale amputations made to the story as a whole. Never mind scenes being “deleted”, entire characters and plotlines are going to have to be deleted.

I think because we're talking about a TV series, some of the major POV characters in book 2 are going to have to drop down to support characters, which will not please book fans.

However, I think whatever we end up with should be broadly good - it's just that the TV series at some point is going to have to move away from the book canon because of their own limitations.

 

[Wiggum]

Lol, Brian, you might want to remove my thread in the TV section

Great news indeed.

 

[TK-421]

Oh Viz, one can't be perfect always.

Anywho, I agree that there will need to be more material for certain characters that people grow to love or hate in the first season. Jaime is one of those. But they are a minority.

However, there is quite a bit of some of the mainstay characters that are featured this season: Sansa, Arya, Bran, Tyrion, Joffrey, Dany, Cersei, Littlefinger, Sandor, etc.

On the other hand, there are great storylines and plots for new characters like Melissandre, Stannis, Davos, etc. that they would need to feature because of the central role they end up playing or the events they are involved in put in motion other events.

In short: I'm not worried (nor am I a purist!)

 

[Raven]

Brian: that's a problem. We know David and Dan have given this some thought - GRRM has spoken about it a couple of times, at Octocon last year for example. (There's a transcript of the Q&A kicking around, I think.)

But it'll actually be relatively easy to insert some Jaime and Robb scenes. It merely involves moving some offscreen stuff, onscreen. You can simply amend Tyrion's attempted rescue to include some Jaime-time, for example, or show some scenes with Robb on campaign.

And remember that Ned and Robert are gone. That will free up more than enough space to keep us up to date with those two characters and introduce some more.

 

[viZion]

What's to stop them from splitting up a book into two seasons?

 

[Raven]

Nothing at all. Nor is there anything to stop them from shifting events around (e.g. putting something from ASOS into series 2). The notion that each book will be a season is only a guideline: even GRRM expects them to do two seasons for ASOS and three for AFFC and ADWD combined. After all, there are time overlaps between events in the books as published - most famously in AFFC and ADWD, but also quite significantly at the end of ASOS and beginning of AFFC.

 

[TK-421]

Casting for season two started on May 4th.

Characters being casted are speculated to include: Stannis, Melissandre, Shireen, Davos, Brienne, Asha (my sweet ), Ygritte, Edmure, Brynden and Quorin

Nina Gold, Weiss, Benioff and GRRM will review tapes and then there will be recalls for live auditions.

 

[JagLover]

even GRRM expects them to do two seasons for ASOS and three for AFFC and ADWD combined. After all, there are time overlaps between events in the books as published - most famously in AFFC and ADWD, but also quite significantly at the end of ASOS and beginning of AFFC.

Spoliers for ADWD...removed