Rian Johnson has seen some highs and lows as a director, but one missed opportunity that still sticks with him is Game of Thrones. Johnson is friendly with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and he hoped for a chance to direct an episode of their hit fantasy drama while it was on the air. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he recalled one close call where he nearly got to do it, but it fell through. Johnson said he doesn’t dwell on the missed opportunity, knowing that he’s been lucky in many other ways in his career. Still, After all this time, it’s still the gig he thinks about when asked about his regrets.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Johnson gave this interview to mark the ending of Poker Face Season 2, but he looked back on his whole career in the process, including TV and movies. He talked about the Breaking Bad episode “Ozymandias” as a huge breakthrough in his career, and said he was disappointed he never got to return for the prequel series, Better Call Saul. As for other jobs he had to regretfully turn down, he jumped straight to Thrones.
“There was a moment where my buddies Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff] were doing Game of Thrones. They usually shoot those in blocks, so it’s a commitment of six months or something,” he explained. “But there was one stand-alone episode, and there was a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, could that work?’ And then it didn’t. There’s heartbreaks that come along now and then. But again, who knows long long I’ll be able to do what I’m doing?”
We can only guess which episode Johnson was referring to, but he did give a hint in an interview with The Playlist back in July 2012. At the time, he said that he “would have done an episode last season” if he hadn’t been busy at the time editing his movie Looper. Game of Thrones premiered in 2011, and Season 2 aired from April 1 to June 3 of 2012, so by “last season,” Johnson might have been referring to either batch of episodes. The big spectacles in that part of the story include the birth of Daenerys’ dragons and the Battle of the Blackwater, but Johnson could just have easily have come on board for a more character-driven story.
It’s interesting to speculate about how any episode of the show might have looked in Johnson’s hands. Game of Thrones generally employed the same handful of directors on a rotating basis for its infamously rigorous shoots. The first two seasons were directed by Tim Van Patten, Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Alan Taylor, Alik Sakharov, David Petrarca, David Nutter, and Neil Marshall. They all directed multiple episodes except for Sakharov and Marshall, who directed one episode apiece. One of those is likely the “stand-alone” episode Johnson is referring to — Season 2, Episode 3, “What Is Dead May Never Die,” and Season 2, Episode 9, “Blackwater.”
It’s sad to imagine what might have been, but at least Johnson missed this opportunity in order to do other acclaimed work, while Game of Thrones continued strong without him. Johnson may still have his chance at Westeros someday in a spinoff series — A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres sometime in 2026, followed by House of the Dragon Season 3 later in the year. Several other shows are still in development at HBO.
Most Viewed
-
image courtesy of Netflix -
Toei Animation
