It’s no secret that Game of Thrones started out amazing but the conclusion felt rushed and led to fans claiming that the series was a complete disaster. Naturally, most people blamed George R.R. Martin for not finishing his A Song of Ice and Fire book series sooner so that the showrunners would have some source material. However, it turns out that the author didn’t have a say in what happened on the show.
George R.R. Martin was recently a guest on The History of Westeros podcast (via PopCulture) where he revealed that he was not given creative control on Game of Thrones. “Hollywood will give you money a lot easier than they’ll give you creative control,” Martin said with a laugh. “You can go to negotiations and say ‘Yes, I will thank you for paying me 8 million dollars, but I would like creative control as well.’ And they will say, ‘How about 10 million?’ They would rather give millions of dollars than any creative control.” He then clarified that although he doesn’t have control of House of the Dragon, he has the ears of showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik. “What I do have is influence, I have creative influence,” Martin said, “but that depends largely on the relationship between myself and the showrunners and so forth. I mean, I can make points, I can argue and they can listen, but if they decide not to listen, then you know, I can persuade them.” “I don’t have the power to hire or to fire,” he added. “I don’t have the power to dictate things, but what I have, if they listen to me and I can be fairly persuasive and I know this material pretty well, so, there’s that something and it’s always changing.” This is great news considering that as Martin puts it, he knows the material very well. With that in mind, House of the Dragon is set to be largely faithful to the source material. House of the Dragon Episode 2 is titled The Rogue Prince and will premiere on HBO on Sunday, August 28, 2022, at 9:00 PM EST.
