Game of Thrones is definitely the most successful fantasy series of the 21st century. It was a huge gamble that HBO took, and it paid off. The original pilot was a mess itself, causing the studio a 10-million-dollar loss. The showrunners had to lie to get it on the wheels again. Neil Marshall, who directed the second season’s ‘Blackwater’ and the fourth season’s ‘The Watchers on the Wall‘ testified the fact.
In an interview with the Den of Geek, Marshall said, “They went to this faraway place that really didn’t have much of an infrastructure, and they built a studio from the ground up and spent the next 10 years in Belfast, making Game of Thrones what it is today. But at the beginning, it was seen very differently. I think it was seen as the great experiment.”
“I mean, just to be a part of that show at all makes me proud. It did change the face of television and it upped everybody’s game considerably,” the director says.
“HBO took a massive gamble on it, but it paid off in droves and became part of the zeitgeist,” Marshall continues. “That’s a massive achievement for any TV show, especially a fantasy TV show, which, as those of us who love fantasy movies know, there’s only a handful that have broken through, like Lord of the Rings and now Game of Thrones. So many other great ones have fallen by the wayside. It’s a difficult genre to master, and they did a fantastic job of it.”
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