First season covers the entire first book. I believe HBO plans to make the second season cover the entire second book. The other books are longer and I don't think HBO has decided how to handle this. Hopefully they will split up the third or fourth book into multiple seasons so that the book series has ample time to stay ahead of the show.
At this point, it would be silly to NOT make at least the third season after all the cash they've poured into it. Most of the big locations have already been built, too (King's Landing, The Wall, The Eyrie, etc). If we at least get the first 3 books, I will be a happy man.
The first season budget is around $50-60 mil. I have a shaky feeling it might not last pass 3rd season if the ratings doesn't go up. Actors and people must be asking for raise and there are just so many characters.
At this point I want the whole thing! True Blood is on book 4 and many other series have gone well past 3 seasons. I want the whole thing. I was pissed when Rome was cancelled after 2 seasons and this is probably my favorite series since Rome.
Some actors won't be back for next season though (Mark Addy, Harold Llyod, and others.....). Depending on who they cast for season 2, I could see the actors budget being smaller. DVD sales will factor heavily into HBO's decisions and those could be very high.
Ratings are not as relevant as subscriptions, and there isn't necessarily a perfect correlation between the two (and the ratings are not that bad anyway). Also, GoT transports internationally better than any other HBO show, they have sold it to dozens of other countries.
GOT has better ratings than True Blood did in its first season (not that ratings matter at all). http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/05/the-ratings-so-far/
True. And I still believe that GoT's will go up next year after the Blu Ray release just like it did for TB. But, in the end, subscriptions matter more than ratings for HBO.
At this point I think they have been pretty true to the book in most things, and but season 2 and beyond will be a real test for them. So far the action scenes have been small skirmishes or duels, when they get to the larger scale battles things will be tougher to film on a TV budget. Other shows have had huge armies on screen, but one of the small disappointments so far has been the lack of cgi crowds for things like Drogo's kalasar. His horde is 40,000 strong, but on TV it looks more like a hundred or so. At the feast where Viserys was crowned, there were supposed to be 5,000 in attendance, likewise the crowds at the tournament in kings landing were huge. So I am curious as to how they will handle the battle scenes that are coming with 30,000+ on each side. How much future scenes have to stray from the books to fit in a TV budget will go a long way to determining the show's long term success.
I think they'll do them like the books where its mostly via a first person viewpoint and where lots of things happen offscreen and are relayed secondhand or in flashbacks, so that you don't have to actually see thousands and thousands of dudes and bust the budget.
I would think that with the release of HBOGO (up yours, Time Warner) that subscriptions should be on the increase in a big way, and GoT will have some wiggle room in terms of the less meaningful ratings... though I would imagine those would get better for GoT unless they just screw up.
To it's "competition" Thrones is doing very well: http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/06/03/the-killing-ratings/
I started watching Camelot and thought it was an OK show until I tuned into GoT a couple weeks later; haven't watched it since.
Seriously? No one has anything to say? I just saw episode 8. I thought it was pretty awesome. I'm excited to see the last two but am sad it's nearly over. I really like it all.
This was one of the best ones, I thought. What's up with that guy that keeps taunting Jon Snow at the Wall? Did they explain why he's such a jerk?
