Now that Winter has finally come, “Game of Thrones” Season 8 is expected to have fewer episodes than the previous ones. But some of the show’s episodes still end up leaking, and HBO plans to prevent it from happening again by shooting multiple endings, which may be an interesting idea, but not for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
Will HBO pay the ‘Game of Thrones’ cast $19M for each episode?
It was reported before that HBO will spend $19 million on each “Game of Thrones” Season 8 episode, which means it is possible that they will proceed with the plan anytime soon.
GoT’s cast and production crew are expected to flock once again to start filming this October.
Some of the best directors of the fantasy drama will also come back to feature the biggest fighting scenes: “Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik and “The Rains of Castamere” director, David Nutter.
Although there will be fewer episodes, they are going to be longer. If HBO does really plan to invest $19 million per episode, then it means the whole season will probably need at least $114 million. Casey Bloys, programming chief of HBO, explained that the idea of producing multiple endings is necessary for a show like this.
“When you are shooting something, people know. So they are going to shoot multiple versions so that there's no real definitive answer until the end,” he said.
GOT S8 spoilers revealed ahead
We saw it happen: bodies burning and the wall crumbling. George R.R. Martin successfully sold millions of books while the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 HBO series is victorious in its feat too. The risk of an episode getting leaked is still out there, and the idea of shooting multiple endings might be useful for HBO.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau does not seem to agree with this though, saying, “They know how expensive it is to shoot. You are not going to waste $100,000 a day to shoot something you are not going to use. It is not going to happen.”
Another long-running show successfully followed this kind of plan as well. “The Walking Dead” made the first death of season 7 less obvious when a different plot was leaked.
The goal is to confuse the fans and deliver a better ending. A series of spoilers will probably be revealed online late next year.
With the final season of “Game of Thrones” Season 8 coming, an investment as big as $115 million may not be so bad if it hoards more than 12 million viewers like season 7’s “The Dragon and the Wolf.” The Emmy-winning show is expected to return in 2018 or 2019.
