There's big news for Game of Thrones fans. HBO has hired four writers to develop spinoffs of the show, which wraps next year. That doesn't necessarily mean all will make it to the screen. But there will almost undoubtedly be more sinister scheming in Westeros and Essos in our future.
Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have long said they won't stick around for any sequels or prequels. But Entertainment Weekly reported Thursday that the pair will indeed be involved to a lesser extent than they have on whatever series comes out of this, as executive producers. And they're not the only ones returning. George R.R. Martin, who wrote the series Game of Thrones is based on, will be fairly hands on. He's helping develop two of the four spin-off ideas, collaborating with Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Kingsman) and Carly Wray (Mad Men, The Bastard Executioner).
This is good news -- in a way. Of course we want the man who invented such a vivid world to help create any extensions of that universe. But there's a downside, too: Is Martin ever going to get around to finishing his Game of Thrones books, which fans have been eagerly awaiting for years? It's not looking good.
To recap, when HBO premiered Game of Thrones in 2011, Martin had already written four of the planned seven books in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Later that year he published the fifth novel, A Dance With Dragons. Some readers were concerned from the start that the show would catch up to Martin's story, given that it took him five years to complete Dance. Sure enough, the series raced right past the pages. The sixth season of the show was the first time book readers couldn't brag about knowing what was yet to come.
