HBO to Tackle A Song of Ice and Fire!

When I saw Purefoy in Rome, I thought that he played Mark Antony as a cross of Robert’s debauchery and Jaime’s arrogance. He’d work as either in ASOIAF (or, heck, as Renly).

Christopher Lee as Selmy?

Also, wow, the chick they have as Dany on that page looks startingly appropriate.

Purefoy isn’t effete enough for Renly. Renly is pure prettyboy charm, and Purefoy has too much a sense of danger about him. He definitely has the right personality for Jaime, but not the right look.

Hmm, I could see Patrick Stewart as Ser Barristan Selmy as well.

I’m going to guess they go the route they’ve been going lately and avoid more than one or two big name stars. I expect a couple of familiar faces, and a slew of unknowns from the theatrical stages of the UK. Which brings to mind the question of accents. Will they all have British accents as they do in Rome? Or regional appropriate accents? What do people from the North sound like? I’d say Canadians, but that’s my obvious bias, though we Canucks certainly understand the Stark words. I also wonder what Dornishmen sound like. Lannisters are definitely dripping with upper-class British accents, there’s no question there. And everyone from King’s Landing should sound Cockney. Oh, the fun they’ll have with accents.

Amd then there are all those free city accents…

The best thing to do with this news is file it away and then forget about it. HBO will start pimping it a year before it actually airs and then we can have a year of building hype.

Pentos: Spanish accents

Summer Isles/Free Isles (wherever Jhalabar Xho is from): some sort of central African accent, I’d imagine

The Iron Isles (Greyjoys): I picture a some sort of Scandinavian-flavored accent, or some heavily bastardized English accent (pirates and all).

Dorne: a bit of Arabic flavor to the accent

Holy crap. I’ve wished for this EXACT thing.

Oh hell yeah, this will be awesome and I will 100% for certain subscribe to HBO for this. Rome almost got me, this will.

George updated his site with a bit more detail
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/news.html

Sounds good. Yes, it’s only been optioned and it’s in development, it hasn’t been greenlit yet, but it sounds like there’s been some serious thought put into it. It already has a bunch of producers and exec producers attached to it, and the bios of some involved in encouraging. The seasons are HBO seasons, so instead of 20-24 episodes per season, we’re talking 12. That’s good, cause you couldn’t stretch out each novel to 20 episodes. Twelve sounds perfect, though.

I’m probably missing it in the press release somewhere but does it say how many episodes per season?

Twelve per season, one book per season. Super sweet.

I don’t know much about these books other than they’re popular, but I love HBO for taking a shot at them. HBO is so awesome.

They need to find a role for Ian McShane. I don’t know who I’d pick him to play, but that guy has screen presence.

It would take quite a bit of makeup, but McShane would rock as Lord Frey.

Or Roose Bolton, come to think of it, though his coloring is way off.

Use LOTR magic and make him play Tyrion.

Ian McShane as a dwarf would be worth the price of admission.

I see McShane as Sandor Clegane. But Tyrion’s also a good choice, since Ian would then get more screen time.

Desslock:

Seconded about HBO!

Balut:

How about Daniel Craig as Jaime, as suggested as my friend (okay, never going to happen, but we’re talking hypotheticals here)? He’s also got the personality, and he’s blond and buff.

Jaime’s a prettyboy though. Orlando Bloom? Eww.

Ditto and ditto. I have it sitting on my shelf, waiting at least until the confirmed last book of the series is out in hardcover. I’ll probably start from the beginning again so I remember what the fuck is going on. Waiting multiple years between books is just not on.