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Season 5 Trailer Unveiled

February 3, 2015 at 11:38 am
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I was at the SuperBowl this past weekend. Great game with a terrible ending. But overall, still an amazing experience.

Others — millions of others, actually — were at IMAX theatres across the land, for the special IMAX screenings of episodes 9 and 10 from the fourth season of GAME OF THRONES. I would have loved to have seen that too, but alas, there’s no Imax near me.

Those who did make it to an Imax saw the first full-length trailer for season five.

For those who were not, like me, here it is in all its glory. Enjoy.

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Telltale Two Trailer

January 22, 2015 at 12:57 pm
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Telltale Games has just released a trailer for the second episode of their GAME OF THRONES videogame.

This one is called "The Lost Lords."  (Hey, good title).

Enjoy.

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A Tease from IMAX

January 20, 2015 at 7:59 pm
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If you happen to live in or near a town with an IMAX theater, it may be that you'll be one of the lucky ones who will get to see GAME OF THRONES on the big, big, BIG screen on January 29.

HBO will be screening the last two episodes from season 4 — "Watchers on the Walls" and "The Children" — at selected IMAX theatres for one week only.

Here's a taste:

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Alas, the Jean Cocteau does not have an IMAX screen.  There is an IMAX down in Albuquerque, but last I heard, it was not one of the theatres selected for those promotion, so New Mexicans are out of luck.

But not completely — the Jean Cocteau WILL be doing another free GAME OF THRONES marathon this year, screening all of the episodes from season four on our… alas… modest medium-sized screen.  We do hope to have cast and crew joining us via Skype, however.  So watch this space closely for details, and go to the Cocteau web site and sign up for our newsletter.

And all you folks who have an IMAX near at hand, enjoy the spectacle.

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Weekend Contests

January 9, 2015 at 4:42 pm
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Some big big contests this weekend.

In the NFL, it's the divisional round.  On Saturday, Baltimore is at New England and the Carolina Panthers are at Seattle.   My former assistant Ty is a big Panthers fan, so my feelings for them are largely positive… but I like the Seahawks too.  I had a very pleasant breakfast with their owner a few months ago. I have no favorite in that game.  Of couse, I will be rooting hard for the Ravens to defeat Evil Little Bill and his Patriots.  Hey, they are named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe, a fellow writer… and while it is true they beat my Giants in a SuperBowl once, it's been a long time, I forgive them.

On Sunday, it is Dallas at Green Bay and Indianapolis at Denver.  I am for Denver in the AFC game; after all, Peyton is Eli's big brother.  And the Colts should never have left Baltimore besides, so pfui to the Irsays.  The early game, hey, no contest, I have hated and despised the Cowboys even longer than I have hated the Patriots, so I will be pulling hard for Green Bay and that baaaaad man Aaron Rogers.

(Meanwhile, I will also be rooting for the Jets to get a kickass GM and head coach, for Rex to get another head coaching job, and for my Giants to bring back Steve Spagnuolo as defensive coordinator).

The NFL isn't the only contest this weekend.  This year's Golden Globe Awards will also be presented on Sunday night, and GAME OF THRONES is nominated in Best Dramatic Series.  The competition this time around is HOUSE OF CARDS, THE AFFAIR, THE GOOD WIFE, and DOWNTON ABBEY.   David Benioff and Dan Weiss and Carolyn Strauss and a number of our other producers and cast members will be on hand at the ceremony, though I won't be there myself this year.  But I will watching from home and cheering loudly for the show, and hoping that my friends and colleagues get a Globe (the GG rules are such that I would not get one myself, even if we win).

So in conclusion:

GO RAVENS
GO PACKERS
GO DRAGONS
GO DIREWOLVES

GO HBO!

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Sibel Is Coming

December 12, 2014 at 12:28 pm
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I think Sibel Kekilli has forgiven me for killing Shae.  🙂

She must have, surely, because she's coming to Santa Fe week after next.

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Those of you who are GAME OF THRONES fans know Sibel best for her turn as Shae, of course… but this beautiful young German actress has done a great deal more of that.  Among her other honors, she's won the Lola Award — the 'German Oscar' — not once but twice.  In honor of Sibel's visit, we'll going to be screening the first of her Lola-winning performances.  For three nights only,  you can see HEAD ON on the big (well, medium sized) at the Jean Cocteau Cinema.

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HEAD ON will be showing on December 18th, 19th, and 20th.  Tickets will soon be available through the Jean Cocteau website at http://www.jeancocteaucinema.com/    And circle the middle date on your calendars.  December 19 is the date that Sibel will be joining us at the theatre to introduce the film, talk about her life and career, and answer your questions… about HEAD ON, sure, but I imagine she'd be glad to take some GAME OF THRONES questions too.

(And we will have plenty of Ice & Fire books on hand for her to sign, including the new 'Making Of' book).

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See you at the movies.

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Awards, Awards

December 11, 2014 at 12:34 pm
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Award season is at hand in Hollywood, and GAME OF THRONES is racking up the nominations.

The show scored three nods from SAG, the Screen Actors Guild.  Peter Dinklage was nominated as Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, along with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey of TRUE DETECTIVE, Steve Buschemi from BOARDWALK EMPIRE, and Kevin Spacey for HOUSE OF CARDS.   The cast as a whole was nominated for Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama, and our stunt team was nominated for Best Action Performance by an Ensemble.

Variety has the full list at http://variety.com/2014/film/news/sag-awards-nominations-birdman-boyhood-1201375775/

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This year's Golden Globe have also just been announced.  The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated GAME OF THRONES in Best Drama.  The competition is THE GOOD WIFE, DOWNTON ABBEY, THE AFFAIR, and HOUSE OF CARDS.  (Very surprised not to see BOARDWALK EMPIRE on that list; their final season was astounding.  MANHATTAN also deserved a nod, I think.  This is truly the Golden Age of television drama).

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As ever, it is an honor to be nominated, to be part of the conversation.

(I remain skeptical about our chances of actually winning, the bias against fantasy being what it is).

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GOT, HBO Score WGA Nominations

December 4, 2014 at 2:53 pm
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The Writers Guild of America has just announced the nominees for its annual awards, and HBO and GAME OF THRONES are both well represented on the shortlists.

The writing staff of GAME OF THRONES season four (David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, and me) scored another nomination for Best Dramatic Series.  We'll be up against THE GOOD WIFE, HOUSE OF CARDS, TRUE DETECTIVE, and MAD MEN.

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But that's not all.  In the Episodic Drama category, my own season four episode, "The Lion and the Rose," was nominated.  It will be competing against episodes from THE GOOD WIFE, RECTIFY, MAD MEN, and two strong BOARDWALK EMPIREs.  Tough company indeed.

But I am thrilled by the nomination.  The last time one of my scripts was nominated was 1987, when one of my TWILIGHT ZONE episodes was a finalist.  (I lost to Harlan Ellison, with another TZ script).  So it's very cool to make the shortlist. 

For a full list of nominees, go to:

 http://www.eonline.com/news/603528/game-of-thrones-orange-is-the-new-black-and-true-detective-lead-2015-wga-nominations

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Iron from Ice

November 18, 2014 at 12:28 am
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There's a new GAME OF THRONES computer game on the way, this one from Telltale Games.

Unlike the earlier games from Cyanide, this is an HBO license, derived from the television series rather than the novels, so the characters will look like their TV incarnations, and in many cases will be voiced by the actors who play them on the show.   The action is centered around House Forrester, bannermen to the Starks of Winterfell whose seat in the wolfswood.  (Some Forresters are mentioned in the Stannis chapters, when he marches south from the Wall to attack Winterell, but very little is said about them, which made them ideal for game purposes).

The game will be sort of a side story to the show (and books), swirling and around major events.  Ty Franck, my longtime assistant who went off to become half of James S.A. Corey and write the Expanse novels, acted as a consultant on story and continuity for Telltale.

The first teaser trailer has just been released.  Have a look:

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Emmy Night

August 25, 2014 at 8:21 pm
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It's Emmy night!

(On a Monday in August… thanks, NBC, he muttered sourly).

Parris and I will be off to the Nokia Theatre in a few hours, battling the inevitable traffic jams, which will be much worse than usual because, well, it's a Monday in August.

GAME OF THRONES scored 19 Emmy nominations, more than any other program, and took home four awards last weekend in the technical categories.  Tonight we are contending in five more categories: Neil Marshall for directing, David and Dan for scripting, Lena Headey for Best Supporting Actress, Peter Dinklage for Best Supporting Actor, and of course the show itself for Best Drama.

Whether we will win any remains to be seen.  Pretty much everyone is saying that BREAKING BAD has this year locked up.  Maybe they are right.  But last week pretty much everyone was saying DOCTOR WHO had the Hugo locked up as well.  Can GAME OF THRONES score another upset, and break through the Academy's long-standing aversion to fantasy and science fiction?  We will know in a few hours.

That's why they play the games.

Anyway (all together now), "it is an honor just to be nominated," and the after parties are always fun.

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Where Am I Now?

August 22, 2014 at 1:54 pm
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And now the latest installment of, "If this isTuesday, that must be Whitechapel."

Jet lags rules, but I think I am in Los Angeles.  Beverly Hills, actually.  A different city, a different world.  But they treat me very well here.

Scotland was grey, wet, rainy, but the Fringe was in full roar.  Music everywhere, and some great shows that we did not have time to see.  (I was especially chuffed at having to miss the James plays, a triptych of quasi-historical dramas about the reigns of the Stuart kings James I, James II, and James III, all of whom came to bad ends.  You'd think the Scotts might have taken the hint and started naming their kings Graham, Rory, Duncan, Alister, Andrew…. anything but bloody James.  But no, the Scots are a stubborn folk.
When something isna working, by damn, they stick with it.

 But I digress. I missed the plays, and most of the Fringe, but I did get rained on, appeared in several hundred selfies with fans, strangers, and the occasional drunk who did not know who the hell I was but wanted a selfie anyway. I also did two major interviews at the Edinburgh Book Festival.  You can find those on line.  I will post links when I get home.  Signed many books afterwards. I also saw many other terrific authors coming and going, but did not, alas, have time to talk.

In Edinburgh I heard about Robin Williams, which made me very sad.  Never met him, but I loved his work.  We will never see his like again.    We plan to offer free showings of some of his best films at the Cocteau in weeks to come.  DEAD POET'S SOCIETY is my own favorite.  Oh, captain, my captain…

Next was London.  Or rather the Docklands, which are to London as Jersey City and Port Newark are to NYC.  But who cares, it was worldcon… and not only that, but the BIGGEST worldcon in thirty years, finally breaking the attendance record set by the 1984 world com in LA.  (Well, Anaheim).  Worldcon cracks 10,000 at last… it comes twenty years too late, but better late than never.

Would that I could say the growth will continue, but next year's con in Spokane will be lucky to get 3,000.  And the Hugo Losers Party, traditionally hosted by next year's worldcon, was a dismal affair, the worst I've seen since I threw the first of those in 1976 at Big Mac in KC,  Does not bode well for next year.  In the old days a Hugo winner who dared show up at the Hugo Losers party, Hugo in hand, would have been thrown into the hotel pool, or at least had whipped cream sprayed in his hair.  Now all the winners get is… congratulations.

I was one one of them.  "The Rains of Castamere" won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.  David Benioff and Dan Weiss scripted that episode and came down from Belfast to represent, the first time they were able to get to a worldcon.  ORPHAN BLACK — a terrific show — also had an episode nominated, and a writer/ producer on hand to accept.  But we were both vast underdogs, since the other four nominees were all episodes of DOCTOR WHO, the 600-point gorilla that has ruled this category since its inception.  "Blackwater" did break the Doctor'es string last year, but that was at San Antonio.  No sane person thought that we had the slightest chance against the Doctor on his home ground, and on his 50th niversary to boot.  Even the BBC must have been dead certain they were going to win, since they sent David Tennant to accept… but when the envelope was opened, it was David and Dan who sprang from their seats and rushed to the stage to grab the rockets.  I don't think anything could have thrilled them more… well, aside from winning the Emmy on Monday, but the odds against that are long.

What they did afterward was even cooler.  D&D did eventually make their way to that dreary Hugo Losers' Party for a belated bow, but they did NOT hang around the empty auditorium for that endless round of group shots of winners and presenters that has somehow become de rigeur after the Hugos of later.  Instead they headed right down to the Fan Village where all the party tents were, and bought a round for all  the fans in the house, to share the joy and celebration.  Now there's a tradition I can get behind.

Anyway, that was cool.  GAME OF THRONES collected its third Hugo in a row, in a stunning upset over DOCTOR WHO.

And now I am LA, wondering if we can do it again in the Emmys, and somehow shock the world by coming up ahead of BREAKING BAD and TRUE DETECTIVE.  They are the overwhelming consensus choices… but so was DOCTOR WHO.

Tune in Monday night, and find out.

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