The Globe of Gold

April 12, 2023 at 4:36 pm

All of us at HBO and HOUSE OF THE DRAGON were thrilled when Hot D won this year’s Golden Globe Award as Best Dramatic Series. I was pretty surprised as well. It was great to be nominated, as it was in past years when GAME OF THRONES was selected as one of the finalists by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but GOT had never won, and I did not expect that HOUSE would either. The competition was fierce.

But hey, I have seldom been more pleased to be wrong.

I was not able to attend the awards ceremony in Hollywood (I did attend some in past years, including the year when Ron Perlman won his Globe for his portrayal of Vincent on BEAUTY & THE BEAST). Milly Alcock, Emma d’Arcy, and Miguel Sapochnik were on hand to accept on behalf of the show.

The Hollywood Foreign Press and HBO were kind enough to ship the Globes to those of us who were not able to attend, however, and mine has now turned up at the Water Gardens here in Santa Fe.

(I have to say, it is one impressive trophy. Beautiful… and HEAVY. Much heavier than any other award on my shelves, even the Emmy, which is also heftier than you might think. You could bludgeon someone to death with a Globe very easily, and I am sure some cop shop will have that happen on an episode one of these days).

((Not that I would ever need to do that. My house is full of swords)).

Anyway… my thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press, to everyone who voted for us, to our fans and viewers, and of course to the astonishing cast and crew and writing staff of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, who brought the beast home at last.

Current Mood: happy happy

Tags: awards, hbo, House of the Dragon, television

A Globe! A Globe!!

January 11, 2023 at 2:53 pm

Here’s a post I did not expect to be writing.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON won the Golden Globe last night, as the Best Drama of 2022!

It was, of course, an honor just to be nominated, but I never expected that we would win. After all, GAME OF THRONES had been nominated five times, and had never actually taken home a Globe (Peter Dinklage did win one, as Best Supporting Actor, but never the show itself). I was in attendance at the Beverly Hilton for several of those nights, but I did not fly out to LA this time, because… well, I have a lot to do, I am way behind with much of it, and anyway, no one expected us to win. We faced some very formidable competition. THE CROWN had won twice before, so we knew how much the Hollywood Foreign Press loved that show. BETTER CALL SAUL and OZARK were both up for their final seasons, and usually a show that is bowing out gets a boost from that. Last chance, and all. And SEVERANCE was also in the category, one of the hottest new shows of the past year. Against that field, I figured we were the longest of long shots.

But when the envelope was opened, it was HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and…

Miguel Sapochnik, Milly Alcock, and Emma D’Arcy were on hand to accept for us. Emma was also a nominee, for Best Actress, but Zendaya took that Globe, so… it was great to see them get up there. Ryan Condal could not make it, he’s off in London deep in pre-production on HotD season 2, but I know he’s as thrilled as I was. My hat is off to our amazing cast and crew; this is their Globe as well. And of course congratulations are due to all our friends at HBO, who made the show possible. Thanks as well to the Hollywood Foreign Press and everyone who voted for us… and everyone who voted for THE CROWN, SEVERANCE, OZARK, and BETTER CALL SAUL as well. Amazing shows, every one.

And thanks as well to all of you, our fans, viewers, and readers.

Dracarys.

Current Mood: excited excited

Tags: awards, House of the Dragon, television

Random Bits of This and That

April 29, 2022 at 11:13 am

Lots of things going on. Good things, bad things, big things, small things. No time for a long blog post just now, but here are a few random comments about all and sundry, some of which may interest some of you.

Looks like the Jets and Giants both did very well in the first round of the NFL Draft. But you never know. Both teams desperately need help, so I hope they picked the right people. My Sundays in the fall have been a weekly kick in the gut the past few years.

DARK WINDS debuts on June 12 on AMC and AMC+. The trailer is everywhere, so check it out if you have not seen it yet. I was one of the executive producers on this show, a six episode adaptation of the Navajo detective novels by the late great Tony Hillerman. Graham Roland wrote the pilot, and Chris Eyre directed. Zahn McClarnon stars as Joe Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee. They all did great work. Chris, together with Robert Redford, were the ones who brought me into this project a few years back, and I am glad that I was able to help get this made… but if you love the show, and I hope you will, credit belongs to Bob and Chris and Tina Elmore and their team, to our amazing actors, and of course to Tony.

Parris and I really enjoyed the new HBO Max series MINX, a sexy sitcom about a feminist porn magazine in the 70s. The clothes, though… I swear, I owned some of those clothes. Might be I still do, I never throw anything away. Watching MINX did give me flashbacks to the 70s, though. Which is good and bad. The 1970s were my own Dickens Decade: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Or is that now? Yeah, maybe now. A lot of good things have happened for me, undeniably, but so many of my friends have died over the past two/three years… we have a war in the Ukraine which could turn into a nuclear holocaust… public discourse has turned poisonous and toxic, along with much of social media, free speech is under attack, our democracy is under attack… the news is profoundly depressing.

There was an article in THE ATLANTIC recently about how social media is making us all stupid. An impressive piece, though it was also profoundly depressing, since the author does not see a lot of hope. You can check it out at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/ There’s a lot to think about there.

My people tell me that the renovations have been going well on the Jean Cocteau Cinema, Santa Fe’s original art house. We hope to reopen soon, with a renovated auditorium and brand new seats. Big comfortable seats. Fewer of them, mind you — our capacity will shrink from 130 down to 78 — but hey, we only filled the place up a few times a year, usually when Neil Gaiman or Janis Ian was in town. We will let you know when we reopen.

We are getting some great reviews for Sky Railway, and selling out a lot of trains. We still have some more coaches to restore, so we can run more trains and longer consists, but that will come.

THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF SWORDS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.

I saw rough cuts of a couple more episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and was just as pleased as I was with the earlier episodes. Ryan and Miguel and their cast and crew are doing great work. Those of you who like complex, conflicted, grey characters (as I do) will like this series, I think. There will be plenty of dragons and battles, to be sure, but the spine of the story is the human conflicts, the love and the hate, character drama rather than action/ adventure.

And I did I mention? NIGHT OF THE COOTERS is done! Trioscope delivered the final cut last week. It’s a short film, about thirty minutes long, based on one of Howard Waldrop’s wonderful short stories. Joe R. Lansdale wrote the screenplay. Vincent d’Onofrio directed and starred, with a terrific cast of supporting players. We shot it in Santa Fe, entirely on greenscreen. The wizards at Trioscope did the rest, providing the sets, the aliens, the special effects, pretty much everything except the actors and the horses. We will be rolling it out at a series of film festivals through the rest of the year. My staff is working out that schedule now. Once we have some confirmed dates and places, we will share the details here.

Meanwhile, we hope to start shooting a second Howard Waldrop film in about two weeks. Completely unrelated. H’ard (as Gargy used to call him) never wrote the same story twice. This may be the Year of Waldrop.

There’s more, there’s more, there’s always more. But that will need to do for now.

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: everyday life, House of the Dragon, nfl, television, writing

The Pens Behind the Swords

February 20, 2022 at 11:10 am

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON has a great pair of showrunners in Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik.

And it has an amazing cast as well. You’ve been reading about them for months. Matt Smith, Emma d’Arcy, Milly Alcock, Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Emily Carey, Rhys Ifans, Steve Touissant, Fabien Frankel, and more, and more. You may not know their names now, but I think you will before the year ends. You will hate some of them, love some of them, mourn for some of them.

There’s another group of contributors, equally important, whose names you may not know either. But you should. Without them , there would be no show. If there was, it would certainly not be as good as I think HOUSE is going to be. Here are the folks I am talking about:

Yes… it’s the writers.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is based on my novellas “The Princess and the Queen” and “The Rogue Prince,” and other materials from my Targaryen history FIRE & BLOOD… but FIRE & BLOOD is an imaginary history, not a traditional novel. To turn it into a television series requires a lot more work than adapting a novel or short story. The scriptwriters need to make history come alive.

Ryan Condal assembled a pretty amazing team to do just that. The photograph above was taken during one of my visits to LA — the last, I think, before Covid descended on us all, and shut down my travels — when I sat down with Ryan and his writers for dinner. It was a big loud lively dinner at a long table, but the food was great and the company was greater. I loved talking dragons with the team, and I was impressed with the depth of their knowledge of my world, and their enthusiasm for the project.

The first season of HOUSE is now wrapped, and in large part thanks to the talents of our scribes. So please raise your glasses and toast our writers: Sara Hess, Gabe Fonseca, Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, Charmaine DeGrate, Kevin Lau, and Eileen Shim. And of course Ryan Condal himself, the ringmaster and dragon tamer. Oh, and though they are not in the picture, I should also salute Claire Kiechel and Wes Tooke, who joined Ryan and Ti in the mini writer’s room that preceded this one, before there was even a pick up.

(And me, you ask? No, I did not write a script for the first season of HOUSE… part of me would have loved to, but I have been kind of busy with WINDS OF WINTER, the other THRONES successor shows, various WILD CARDS books, the WILD CARDS tv pilot for Peacock and UCP, DARK WINDS for AMC, ROADMARKS for HBO, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS and a couple other really cool Howard Waldrop projects, and… well, yeah, okay, I bought a railroad, never mind. I did co-create the series with Ryan and help give it its shape, and he and I have been in constant contact ever since).

Hollywood is a land of change, and writers are always moving around in today’s television landscape. Some of the folks in the photo above moved on to other shows and other networks before season one of HOUSE even began to film. Others have been with us all the way through the first season, and will be returning for season two (if indeed HBO gives us a season two, cross your fingers). But all of them played a part.

So here’s to the writers! Huzzah!

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: hbo, House of the Dragon, television

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