With all this drama, it seems impossible that Game of Thrones even made it to air in the first place. Even actors like Iain Glen, who played Jorah Mormont, had their doubts. As he remembered, “It was a bit ragged and, in some ways, ill conceived, and no one had great conviction. Since the wedding was shot at night, quite a lot of money had been spent on seeing absolutely f*** all.”
Benioff and Weiss definitely had concerns, too. After showing a rough cut of the Thrones pilot to their families and getting a dismal response, they braced themselves for a full rejection from HBO. As Benioff shared, “HBO was very much on the fence. It’s a traditional thing at any studio that the last regime’s projects are going to be less appealing to the new regime. And this was a very expensive project.”
Lombardo had the same recollection, describing an 11th-hour meeting: “We were in the conference room and had the producers in for a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting. The question was whether the showrunners thought they nailed it. Because if you’re on a different page, that’s really a concern. How do we show this pilot to our CEO and convince him to pick this up to series? How do we convince him this is a gamble worth taking? We go into a mode of ‘how do we fix this?'”
Ultimately, the decision was made by Richard Pepler, HBO’s co-president, who had to decide if the fantasy epic deserved a second chance. Benioff remembered, “We knew going into that screening that his decision was going to make or break us. It was a very tense hour while waiting for a phone call.”
