Game of Thrones showrunners respond to backlash over new show Confederate
'You know, we might f**k it up. But we haven’t yet'
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Your support makes all the difference.Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss could probably pitch any project to any network and it would get made.
Well, the duo has now announced their upcoming project with HBO: Confederate, which will tackle an alternative history that imagines the United States where the South won the Civil War and slavery was never abolished.
Numerous writers have since criticised the project, noting how Game of Thrones did little to represent people of colour while the upcoming show will heavily feature slavery.
“We know that the elements in play in a show like Confederate are much more raw, much more real [than with Game of Thrones],” Weiss told Vulture.
“We know they are different things, and they need to be dealt with in very, very different ways. And we plan, all of us I think, to approach Confederate in a much different spirit, by necessity, than we would approach a show named Game of Thrones.”
Benioff added how the outrage is “premature”, explaining how the scripts have yet to be written: “We don’t have an outline yet. We don’t even have character names. So everything is brand new and nothing’s been written.
“I guess that’s what was a little bit surprising about some of the outrage. It’s just a little premature. You know, we might f**k it up. But we haven’t yet.”
During the same interview, Benioff said the executive producers and writers — the two Game of Thrones alumni, along with Nichelle Tramble Spellman and Malcolm Spellman — are scared, but excited, about embarking on the project.
“It’s obviously creating a lot of controversy before anything’s happened just on the basis of a press release, and that will only continue as we get closer. But even aside from that outside part of it, there’s just the frightening part of — we’re all gonna put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get it right. And that’s scary, but it’s also exciting.
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“It’s what gets the adrenaline pumping and what gets you excited to sit down at your computer and start typing up themes and running them off the other three. And there hasn’t been anything since we started on Thrones that got me so excited to get back to writing new characters.”
Game of Thrones has just embarked on its seventh season, the second episode debuting this Monday on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV.
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