If Game of Thrones’ final season pissed you off and you’ve been cursing D.B. Weiss and David Benioff’s names ever since, you’re in luck! The duo will no longer be doing anything for HBO. Instead, they’ll be headed over to Netflix where they’ve signed an exclusive deal reportedly worth $200M to develop movies and TV programming.
The exception to this deal, of course, is the trilogy of Star Wars movies they’ll be doing for Disney/Lucasfilm. Sorry, that still exists and you’ll just have to like it. On the other hand, their controversial historical drama Confederate, which took heat for presenting an alternative history in which the South won the Civil War, appears to be dead for good after being temporarily shelved. The duo failed to mention it at all in their statement thanking HBO…
“We’ve had a beautiful run with HBO for more than a decade and we’re grateful to everyone there for always making us feel at home. Over the past few months we’ve spent many hours talking to Cindy Holland and Peter Friedlander, as well as Ted Sarandos and Scott Stuber. We remember the same shots from the same ‘80s movies; we love the same books; we’re excited about the same storytelling possibilities. Netflix has built something astounding and unprecedented, and we’re honored they invited us to join them.”
Netflix made their final offer last month, beating out other contenders including Amazon and Disney. This might explain why Benioff and Weiss failed to appear at the final Game of Thrones panel at Comic-Con a couple of weeks ago. They will continue to have an exec-producer credit on the upcoming spinoff shows but won’t have any active input creatively.
This is a mammoth deal and Netflix is going to be expecting a lot in return. Game of Thrones earned tons of Emmys over the years and there will be a reasonable expectation from Netflix to get more of the same. [THR]
