With ‘Game of Thrones’ coming to a close in 2019, HBO is looking toward the future and what to do about the potential prequel spin-off shows which are in the works. While both the network and actors have confirmed that they wouldn’t be reprising their roles, that doesn’t mean we’ll have a complete drop in the budget for these shows as the production costs alone will be huge. Thankfully, if HBO plays their cards right, they could potentially re-use some of their sets and filming locations to help cut costs.
While talking about the production value of the future shows, HBO senior VP of drama Francesca Orsi had a few things to say about it at the “The Best of HBO” panel at the INTV conference in Israel. You have to keep in mind, though, that the network has five scripts that are competing for at least one, if not multiple, series orders.
“It feels like corporate malfeasance to not continue it. That’s why it spawned three, four, five spin-offs* … We’re going big.”
It sounds as if HBO will be looking at a few spinoffs to go into production, but at what cost? The final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ is clocking in at roughly $15 million per episode and while that isn’t a feasible budget to launch a show with, neither is having the budget used in Season 1. It would make the new series look cheap compared to what audiences are looking at now.
“If we do take off on one of these Game of Thrones spin-offs, where do we start? We can’t obviously start with the budget of Season 8 but would it be a ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 3 budget?”
As she states, “$50 million [per season] would never fly for what we are trying to do. We are going big” which means at the very least these prequels will look pretty. Whether the planned prequels can capture the attention of audiences in the same way that ‘Game of Thrones’ will be an entirely different story.
Do you feel that you’ll want to return to Westeros once ‘Game of Thrones’ comes to an end? Will prequel shows that don’t involve the characters who we’ve come to know and enjoy on screen have any interest to you? Share your thoughts below!
