There is a universe where Game Of Thrones was filmed vertically to fit on a phone
In a new profile, the Game Of Thrones showrunners introduced a new potential series ruiner into the narrative
Former Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have borne the cross of the series’ terrible final season for nearly half a decade now, but in the streaming wars as in the Westerosi wars, sometimes there are far darker forces at play. In a new Wall Street Journal profile, the much-maligned duo revealed that they may have been the Cersei, “devil you know” type villains to a different insidious, unbeatable White Walkers (or at least… they should have been) all along.
GOT fans, you may want to sit down for this one. Apparently, AT&T, who owned HBO at the time, once asked the directors if they could film episodes of Game Of Thrones vertically so they could fit on people’s phones. Vertically! Can you imagine watching an epic, sweeping scene like the Battle of the Blackwater for the first time up and down? It would seem more like the Kerfuffle of the Blackwater than anything else.
“When you sign a five-year deal with a company, you want that company to be stable so you can be left alone to do your work and not have to worry about it being bought by the phone company,” Benioff said in reference to the pair’s $200 – $300 million Netflix deal, under which they’ll be releasing their sci-fi epic 3 Body Problem late next month. “Finding the smoothest ride in the ocean was key.”
If these reports are accurate, their former home at HBO was about as choppy as it could be. In addition to the vertical filming, Benioff and Weiss also confirmed that they had originally pitched execs on doing three theatrical-run movies to end the series instead of a final season, an idea novel writer George R.R. Martin discussed back in 2020. According to the duo, the concept was struck down and they were reminded that HBO stood for “Home Box Office,” not “Away Box Office.”
The company also apparently “openly discussed” the idea of “snackable mini-episodes” of the series, whatever the hell that means. Would Quibi have fared better if Game Of Thrones was its flagship product? Probably, but thank god we’ll never actually have to know the answer to that one for sure. Maybe this isn’t the absolute worst timeline, after all.