Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Game of Thrones producers begged HBO bosses to film iconic battle scene: ‘We went down on bended knee’

Ambitious battle sequence had to be pared back despite an additional $2m granted for the episode

Annabel Nugent
Thursday 01 October 2020 10:37 BST
Comments
Maisie Williams on the end of Game of Thrones

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

The Game of Thrones producers have revealed they had to plead with the bosses at HBO to let them film the Battle of Blackwater.

The legendary season two battle, which sees Stannis Baratheon attempt to take King’s Landing and seize the Iron Throne from Joffrey, almost didn’t get made.

In an extract of James Hibberd’s forthcoming book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, released by Vanity Fair, the series’ showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss admitted to the difficulties they faced when trying to get the iconic scene filmed.

“There was talk of turning Blackwater into a land battle, which would have been terrible. We begged and pleaded with Mike Lombardo [former HBO boss],” said Weiss. “We had a big conversation about how many boats we could do.”

Benioff added: “We went down on bended knee: ‘Just this once, please.’”

The pair were granted an extra $2m (£1.5m) to bring the Battle of Blackwater to life, as well as an extra week of filming. However, the original scene written in the books was still too ambitious to stage so its author George RR Martin was tasked with downsizing his vision.

Martin told Hibberd: “We had to scale down Blackwater considerably from the book. They told me right from the start that the bridge of boats would be impossible.”

Despite having to curtail his written version of the battle, the acclaimed author recently revealed that his least favourite scene in the HBO adaptation of his books is, in fact, an early sequence of King Robert going hunting.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in