Game of Thrones Co-Creator Explains Why He Won't Be Involved in Spinoffs
The success of HBO's Game of Thrones is undeniable, even if the reception to the final seasons wasn't entirely unanimous, though even with all of the acclaim the project earned over the course of a decade, co-creator D.B. Weiss recently reflected on why neither he nor David Benioff would be returning to the franchise anytime soon. Weiss recalled how he and Benioff spent the better part of 11 years devoted to and invested in the series, with the pair now far more excited about building new worlds as opposed to returning to one that dominated so much of their lives. The first spin-off series, the prequel The House of the Dragon, is expected to debut on HBO later this year.
"All in, we were 11 years, probably, doing that show. When I say 11 years, it was full-on, all in, all day, every day for 11 years," Weiss recently recalled to Entertainment Weekly. "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 us 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."
It's difficult to overstate the impact that the HBO series had on pop culture, in addition to how much of a gamble the series initially was. While fantasy stories have been impressing audiences for decades, the mature exploration of Westeros, along with copious amounts of sex and violence, wasn't a guaranteed hit when it first debuted back in 2011. The debut of each season, however, would go on to make it an even more popular touchstone for audiences, as each season would also heighten the expectations of viewers.
Due to the gamble of those early seasons, it's clear that the co-creators hadn't anticipated the phenomenon it would become.
"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," Weiss added.
In addition to House of the Dragon, a number of other spin-off series are being explored for the franchise and are in various stages of development.
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