I can now write the post I was going to write last week !  HBO have now offically given a greenlight to the first series of Game of Thrones. The fanatasy series based on George RR Martins Song of Ice and Fire series of books will go ahead.

Cast so far includes such names as Sean Bean, Jason Momoa, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage and Mark Addy. Expect more big names to come.

Nine episodes in addition to the pilot have been ordered, which means ten episodes in all for the first series, filming is due to take place in June for a spring 2011 release (I am assuming stateside only).  Locations are similar to the pilot with the majority of the filming to be done in the Paint Hall in Belfast, and on location in Morocco and Scotland. Doune castle here we come!

Now news has yet been given about further casting has been given , but previous hints and statements and the  quality of the cast already assembeled would lead me to belive we may be in for some very pleasant suprises.

Anyway more detailed news later.

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1. It is a lull period in the production cycle much mores peculation than news

2. I’ve just started a new job and things are busy.

3. My little ones juts turned 3 months and my eldest is 3 years.

4. We have just started re doing out ‘look what we did in Africa site’  www.aprilandjon.co.uk and that takes up some time.

Anyway we should start to see things heat up again soon enjoy.

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However unknown one source (Michael) is claiming that  he had sources saying some people in HBO didn’t like the initial cut of the Pilot, has sent worries round the community. There has been some back tracking saying that it was only first cut and itwas more a muted response than a dislike. Also no one else with any sources has picked up a hint of this speculation.

I still think were safe to assume unless we get more substantive source or evidence its incredibly likely that game of Thrones will be green lit sometime towards the start of march.

Reasons for think so have been

• Positive comments from Harry Lloyd
• Mysterious comments from Esme (Would we have her any other way?)
• The booking of the paint hall by HBO
• Belfast agency prepping up for fantasy extras
• Named and reliable Michael Lombardo quotes about dallies looking fantastic

Nah im still confident it will be Game on !

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1. I am excited that Conan is being remade at all, its may not be the best film ever but it had a very special place in my adolescence so I have found memories of it.
2. Jason Momoa has been cast as Conan, which is a great piece of casting, and far enough away from Arnie to be interesting.
3. Every report I have read on it says Game of Thrones ‘Jason Momoa’ which has amazed me he spent a number of years as one of the lead cast members on Stargate Atlantis, but he now being defined as belonging to a series which has not even been greenlit yet. A truly remarkable level of anticipation.

Anyone on interesting it bit picked up from one of the articles read is that filming for Conan starts in Bulgaria on March the 15th, looking at schedules this may impact on out perceptions of timings for the films shooting once things get green lit.

However I would imagine Jason will be required for a second film shoot in Morocco and timing for that will probably be later again,a nd the shoot for Conon may be brief due to the limited dialogue.

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OK it may be a lazy piece of journalism, but im getting the impression things are almost a done deal.

Anyway apologies to the Americans for the quote, but is true yank accents just seem out of place in fantasy.

Currently baring his buttocks nightly in The Little Dog Laughed in the West End, Harry Lloyd’s next assignment will be Game of Thrones, an HBO medieval fantasy with Sean Bean and Iain Glen.

An American accent will not required. “It’s an unspoken rule that if you’re American, you can’t hold a sword,” the amiable actor tells me. “It’ll be like Lord of the Rings. Everyone will do a non-accent. It will be great fun.”

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….a very sweet print of the cover art to the Meisha Merlin edition of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (one of the nicest editions to have in my opinion). The cover was painted by one of my favorite artists/painters in the business, one Jeffrey Jones. It’s often quoted, but the legendary Frazetta himself once called Jones the “greatest living painter”. This print is a part of a limited run of 375 copies….

For full details on the competition and how to enter visit BSC Game of Thrones competition, enjoy and I hope you win.

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“Game of Thrones. OK, we don’t know if this show will exist, and if it ever does, it may not see air until 2011. But the new year should at least finally bring word as to whether the much-buzzed-about HBO pilot for George R. R. Martin’s grown-up fantasy saga will become a series.”

He knows its going to be out in 2011, but it still makes his 2010 list J.

Game of Thrones also makes the list of Ken Tucker, TV critic for Entertainment Weekly who in his list for 2010, asks for

HBO commits to its adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.

What is of interest here is these guys are mainstream critics for mainstream publications not genre writers, who are excited about Game of Thrones 3 months before the pilot gets seen by HBO, let alone the series heading into production.

Canadas MSN also got in on the act with the following quote from Kim LineKin

Series pick-up to be confirmed by HBO in March
There are already two blogs devoted to following the casting and Northern Ireland location shoot of this series’ pilot episode, which HBO hasn’t yet confirmed will air. The reason for the feverish fan interest? The series is an adaptation of the first novel in George R.R. Martin’s beloved fantasy series that uses knights, tournaments, creatures and icy locations in the service of telling human stories where villains aren’t always the bad guys and where the honourable solution isn’t always the best one in the long run. (Thanks to Time Magazine and the Chicago Tribune for these observations.) Lena Headey from “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” will play a royal woman who’s as cunning as the men around her. Peter Dinklage, Sean Bean, Jennifer Ehle and Mark Addy costar. With any luck, HBO will green light enough games to take us through all the novels in Martin’s saga.

Another piece that I have picked up is from Alex Werpin from Broadcast and Cable

Post-True Blood, the premium cable networks suddenly have a thirst for geek-friendly fare, exploring genres that otherwise may have been left to Syfy. HBO is producing a 60-minute pilot for Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels of George R.R. Martin. The expensive pilot garnered buzz at Comic-Con and online, with many industry observers expecting a series pickup shortly after the pilot gets delivered early this year.

This is all good news as far as the series is concerned, and I am currently thinking that the pilot must really flop, for the series not to get the green light with this kind of anticipation.

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The first in the Gay times

Refreshingly down to Earth for a 26-year-old in his position, he refers to himself as ‘a worrier’. Which makes it all the more gratifying to see him talk about his current other project, a pilot for a new HBO fantasy series, Game of Thrones, based on a range of books. He likens it to a less-magical Lord of the Rings (‘big battles, political and quite dark’) and gleefully describes his role as ‘a brilliant fucking character, a really nice nasty part’.

It’s something he returns to throughout our interview, each time becoming so animated that I actually want to put in a call to the television network and demand they commission a full series as it clearly means that much to him.

and the second in an interesting piece in observer whihc can be found on the guarduian website.

Lloyd, meanwhile, is used to playing around with the dark side. His most talked-about part to date has been a scene-stealing role as a Doctor Who villain (in The Family of Blood episode), and he has just recorded a pilot for HBO’s Game of Thrones, a major ensemble piece crammed with British luminaries which Lloyd describes with relish as a “dark, political intrigue set in a fantasy world… with incest”.

First, though, there’s the stage-run of The Little Dog Laughed, with Tamsin Greig and Rupert Friend in January. Still, for this former Eton schoolboy, the stage can hold no new fears. “When I first started doing drama I had to play the girls because my voice hadn’t broken,” he remembers. “I hated it.

I say the article is interesting as Harry is noted as one of the two up and coming Brtitish actors to watch this year. If this is true it must mean that Game of Thrones must be seen as a project to watch this year.  Its also really encouraging to see Harry’s enthusaism for the project.

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Nikolaj Coster Waldau

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is cast as Jaime Lannister in the HBO production Game of Thrones, a role I am sure he is suited to with his good looks, charm, smooth acting skills and the feeling of everything is just too good that he gives off.

Jamie as a character is not the typical ‘knight in shining armour’ very much being the ‘shite in knighting armour’ or as Frodo says someone that ‘seems fair but feels foul’, it may sound harsher than its meant, but im sure Nikolaj can play that role excellently. This is one of the pieces of casting on Game of Thrones which im most happy with.

Nikolaj Coster Waldau in New Amersterdam

Nikolaj as a Dane has a pedigree in both Danish and English film. I won’t speak to much about Dannish Language film as I know little about it, but I will say his film Nattevagten (1994) is what made him famous in Denmark. He has continued to make Danish language films even after breaking into Hollywood in 2001.

His breakthrough in mainstream English language film came with the Black Hawk Down in 2001, has been busy since that point and has and impressive list of films in which he has been involved with.

However none of his performances have been stand out in these English language films, but he does seem to be one of those actors who Ridley Scott is happy to work with on a number of projects so that speaks well for him.

Nikolaj Coster Waldau

Coster-Waldau is a family man who lives in Denmark and is married to Nukâka Motzfeldt a former Miss Greenalnd and they have two young daughters named Saffina and Philippa.

Filmography

English Language Films

• Black Hawk Down (2001)
• Enigma (2001)
• My Name Is Modesty (2003)
• Wimbledon (2004)
• The Headsman (2005)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
• Firewall (2006)
• New Amsterdam (2008)
• Virtuality (2009)
• Game of Thrones (2010)

Non English Language a Films

• Nattevagten (1994)
• Nattens engel (1998)
• Vildspor (1998)
• Antenneforeningen (1999)
• Misery Habour (1999)
• På fremmed mark (2000)
• Manden bag døren (2003)
• Rembrandt (2003)
• Den gode strømer (2004)
• Supervoksen (2006)
• Underbar och älskad av alla (“Wonderful and loved by everyone”, Swedish, 2006)
• De unge år: Erik Nietzsche sagaen del 1 (“The Early Years: Erik Nietzsche part 1″, Swedish, 2007)
• Kautokeino-opprøret (Norwegian, 2008)
• Himmerland (2008)
• Ved Verdens Ende (2009)

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I am taking a break from Game of Thrones to talk about something happening in the UK which has caught the public imagination.

OK many of you have heard of the X factor and Rage against the Machine in a fight for the UK Christmas number one. At first glance it’s a wonderful piece of silliness, with the possibility of ‘killing in the name of’ been played at 2;45 on Christmas Day afternoon on Primetime BBC one Christmas Top of the Pops.

Looking at it we are seeing directly clash between traditional media and social media. The X factor stands with the backing of 3 months of 3 hours a week, prime time TV programming/commercials for the winners single, 100’s of pages of newspaper press coverage about the show, the biggest media buzz in main stream British media, and the might of Sony’s PR department behind it.

Rage against the Machine didn’t even involve them selves in the start of this venture. It was a married couple of unknown people starting face book group, in some faceless suburb of England.

So we have it the combined might of British Traditional media lined up against a Facebook group, and surprisingly at the moment the Facebook group is winning.

Currently Rage against the machines 16 year old metal classic is out selling , the X factors Joe McEldreys single via 2 to 1, and the bookies have made Rage Against the Machine favourite to get the Christmas number 1 slot in the UK.

We still have a few days to go but it is very possible that a Facebook group (admittedly now with 750,000 members) may cause one of the biggest media upsets of the year.

The reason I suppose is zeitgeist, as we move from the age of dominance of broadcast media into power of social media, people have actually got frustrated with being told what to buy, what to watch, what to like by big media. They are just loving the chance to do something to tip the balance, however trivial, unimportant and slightly daft.

This is not a clash of RATM against Joe McElderry, or even hard music and soft music, it’s a clash of media broadcast vrs social, and a clash of cultures modern vrs post modern.  People seem to be truly delighted at the possibility of a facebook group defying the odds, even people who aren’t RAGE fans are now buying the single.

However we need to understand there have been numerous groups and attempts, to subvert this process before, this year was an attempt to get journey(?????) to number one as well. Only this one has taken off.

This goes to illustrate that though social marketing may work its still a very hit and miss process. Your average facebook group will not be able to have a great effect on anything mainstream for the vast majority of the time.

What does this mean, in itself nothing, but it is probably a symbol of social media gaining more and more influence and having a greater ability to upset the apple cart of traditional big media within our society. or maybe its just as Roald Dahl said “A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” and it means nothing..

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