The Big Picture
Game of Thrones
was initially pitched as a “grounded” series to HBO executives, with creators Benioff and Weiss promising that it would be much cheaper than it ultimately turned out to be.
Despite the initial promise,
Game of Thrones
became one of the most expensive TV series ever, with a budget that grew significantly over its eight seasons.
Benioff and Weiss took a huge risk by misleading executives about the true scope and cost of the show, but it paid off in the end as
Game of Thrones
became a monumental success and an Emmy darling.
Say what you will about Game of Thrones and the turns it took throughout its eight seasons on HBO, it remains one of the most successful television series ever. It’s one of those once-in-a-generation hits that has just about everyone watching it weekly, and its popularity even brought us great spin-offs like House of the Dragon and many others still in development. Early in its development, though, creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had to pitch the series in a way that is now definitely surprising to us: they promised HBO executives it would be much cheaper than they knew it would ultimately turn out to be. It was a huge gamble to take with such a small promise, but thank the Seven it paid off, right?
Game Of Thrones
Nine noble families fight for control over the lands of Westeros while an ancient enemy returns after being dormant for millennia.
Release Date April 17, 2011
Creator David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
Main Genre Drama
Seasons 8
Studio HBO
Benioff and Weiss Originally Pitched ‘Game of Thrones’ to HBO as a “Grounded” Series
Television viewers are used to having HBO as the go-to hub for quality content, but, at the end of 2008, the cable channel had reached a stalemate of sorts. Having just come out of the hugely expensive historical drama Rome and classics like The Sopranos and The Wire, they now found themselves looking for their next hit. They had missed series like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, so there was a lot of pressure to find the next big thing, and it had to be something that wouldn’t be so heavy on their pockets, too. And that’s exactly what Benioff and Weiss promised their executives, according to James Hibberd’s book about the making of Game of Thrones: Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon.
The first season of Rome had cost the BBC a whopping US$ 100 million, which didn’t translate into ratings, unfortunately, leading HBO to cancel it even before Season 2 came out. Benioff and Weiss knew about the financial side of their endeavor and promised the executives that Game of Thrones would be nowhere near as expensive as Rome — which they knew was also nowhere near true. In fact, Rome was big, but Game of Thrones intended to be even bigger eventually, something that, up until then, had never been done on TV. “Nowadays it’s economically viable to make a television show at this scale. Back then, it just wasn’t done,” says Weiss.
So they changed the focus of the series and pitched it as something completely different from what we now know Game of Thrones to be. “The lie we told was that the show was ‘contained’ and it was about the characters,” Benioff confesses. He and Weiss were huge fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, but, for their gamble to work, the executives couldn’t be, as Weiss says: “We knew most of the people making the decisions were not going to read four thousand pages [of Martin’s books] and get to the dragons getting bigger and the [major battles]. The show was exactly what we told them it wasn’t. We were banking on them not finding out until it was too late.”
Even with the promise Benioff and Weiss made to the executives, they weren’t really sure Game of Thrones was the ideal IP for them, either. “This didn’t scream ‘Emmy voters’,” says Michael Lombardo, HBO’s former programming president, who also wasn’t sure the two creators were being truthful: “I’m not sure I ever really believed that. We knew it was a gamble. We were budgeting it and scratching our heads about whether we should go ahead and green-light this. We were trying to figure out the production challenges.” As history would later prove, the series was indeed much more expensive than promised, but it became an Emmy darling as well.
‘Game of Thrones’ Would Go on To Become One of the Most Successful — and Expensive — TV Series Ever
It’s probably for the best that Michael Lombardo and the HBO executives didn’t buy the promise that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss made about Game of Thrones not being that expensive, then, because it made them prepared for what would eventually follow. The first few seasons had a budget of around $60 million to $70 million — not that far below Rome’s final budget, by the way — laying the price per episode at around $6 million. By the time Season 8 started, a single episode was said to be priced at around $15 million.
But even though the initial budget was already steep Season 1 still showed that Benioff and Weiss knew they had to keep up with their word, at least in the beginning. The first season showed the audience that Game of Thrones wasn’t their average fantasy drama and wasn’t afraid to kill its darlings right off the bat. What would make the series grow increasingly more expensive were the visual effects and battle set pieces that weren’t that present in the beginning. Dragons, for example, only show up in the season finale and as babies, and there are no major White Walker sightings apart from a brief glimpse in the premiere — we do see Wights, but those are not nearly as difficult to make as White Walkers.
Because of that, the series could indeed focus more on the characters, already leading us to heartbreak with certain deaths and setting up the heroes for the following seasons. The bigger visual effects issues did become a problem for later seasons, especially from Season 2 episode “Blackwater” beyond, but, by then, Game of Thrones was already established as a hit for HBO, with 13 Emmy nominations in its first year, including two wins — Peter Dinklage for Outstanding Supporting Actor In a Drama Series for his role as Tyrion Lannister, and Outstanding Main Title Design. Game of Thrones would go on to win another 57 Emmys, by the way, so it seems that the series did scream “Emmy voters,” after all.
Related Millie Bobby Brown Wanted To Quit Acting After Losing ‘Game of Thrones’ Role Said role ended up going to an HBO alum with two hits under their belt.
Benioff and Weiss Took the Risk Because of George R.R. Martin’s Stories
Now, obviously, lying is wrong. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss knew they were taking a risk and were probably aware of the consequences that would follow had Game of Thrones gone wrong. Michael Lombardo mentions in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon that the fact that the two of them had no previous experience in television projects was a huge concern for HBO, and, had their gamble not worked, they probably would never have had any experience at all after that. But Game of Thrones left such a mark on television, that it couldn’t have started in any other way if not as a huge risk. Benioff and Weiss gambled on the series because they recognized the potential in George R.R. Martin’s stories, and were right to gamble so much on this project’s success. Most classics began as gambles and risks but later became huge steps in their filmmakers’ careers. Even the weak and troubled ending couldn’t ever erase the fact that Game of Thrones really is a television landmark, and made Benioff and Weiss’ lie a lie worth telling.
Game of Thrones is available to stream on Max.
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