Game of Thrones Co-Creator Has No Desire to Return for Spinoff Series at HBO
HBO may be invested in the Game of Thrones universe with various spinoffs in the works, including the prequel series House of the Dragon, which is set to debut later this year, but Game of Thrones co-creator D.B. Weiss has no interest in being involved. Weiss recently told Entertainment Weekly that he and co-creator David Benioff do not plan to return to the franchise. Weiss explained that not only are they ready to move on to other projects, but they also never saw the spinoffs as being something they needed to be involved with.
"All in, we were 11 years, probably, doing that show," Weiss said (via Variety). "When I say 11 years, it was full on, all in, all day, every day for 11 years. It was the best decade of our lives. It still kind of feels a bit like a dream, but we got to a place where it was pretty clear to us that we had reached the end of what made sense for use to be involved with in that world that we lived. It just felt like, for us, it was time to move on and get excited and terrified about building something else — building lots of something elses."
He continued, "We never saw more Game of Thrones shows [as] something that made sense for us to be involved with, given where we were just as people at the time we were done with the original."
When it comes to those "something elses" for Weiss and Benioff is The Three-Body Problem for Netflix. An adaptation of the award-winning Chinese book trilogy by Liu Cixin, Weiss said that the series will push many of the same buttons as Game of Thrones for audiences. Cast for the series includes Game of Thrones alums John Bradley (Sam Tarly) and Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), plus Marvel's Doctor Strange star Benedict Wong. Other cast members include Jovan Adepo (Watchmen), Tsai Chin (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Eiza González (Baby Driver), Jess Hong (Inked), Marlo Kelly (Dare Me), Alex Sharp (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Sea Shimooka (Arrow), Zine Tseng, and Saamer Usmani (Succession).
"It's like a science fiction show that is painted on a very large canvas of space and time," Weiss explained. It's as visual effects heavy as Thrones was, and it pushes a lot of the same buttons in many ways that Thrones pushed — and doesn't push others in many ways."
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