Fantasy is Back

I just read that HBO has commissioned a new pilot for a US Fantasy show called Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is based on the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin which has been adapted into a very successful Card Game and Board Game by none other than Fantasy Flight Games.

David Benioff (X-men Origins: Wolverine) and Dan Weiss (Re-wrote Halo the Movie) are writers and exec producers.

The Cast is rumoured to include Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Ehle, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Tamzin Merchant and Lena Headey, none of whom I know the first thing about!

Whatever the case, Fantasy is back and that’s what matters. Certainly in the Uk we’ve had the atrocious Robin Hood (2006-2008) and the reasonable well done Merlin (2008) but with a proper Us studio budget, especially an HBO budget (the company behind the most-expensive-mini-series-ever-made, Band of Brothers) I hope that the genre can finally have something to be proud of and claim as its own.   

The shooting of the pilot is due to begin on the 26th October in Belfast, so we can probably expect to see the pilot in late 2010. 

For all those in the Uk Merlin season 2 is due to start back on the 19th September…