House of The Dragon is already on its way for its release in 2022. All the key players are set and we just can’t hold our excitement as more news comes from HBO. For the time being, we can reflect back on our favourite moments from Game of Thrones. Undeniably, one of them has to be the Battle of Blackwater. Entertainment Weekly editor James Hibberd’s book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon sheds more light on the episode.
Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have admitted in the book the amazing battle scene almost didn’t happen. Weiss said, “There was talk of turning Blackwater into a land battle, which would have been terrible.”
“We begged and pleaded with Mike Lombardo [former HBO boss]. We had a big conversation about how many boats we could do,” he commented. David Benioff added, “We went down on bended knee: ‘Just this once, please.’” Ultimately the pair were granted an extra $2million to bring the Battle of Blackwater to life during an extra week of filming.
But even with those concessions, they knew there was no way they could replicate what George R.R. Martin had written in his books. To reduce the scale of this battle, which was the largest battle in the War of the Five Kings, Martin was tasked with a rewrite.
He mentioned to Hibberd in his book, “We had to scale down Blackwater considerably from the book. They told me right from the start that the bridge of boats would be impossible.”
Actor Stephen Dillane (Stannis) never even understood what was happening in Game of Thrones. What do you think about the Battle of Blackwater? Tell us in the comments below!
