Spin-Off Goals: Would ‘Game of Thrones’ benefit from something more?
Through five seasons so far, “Game of Thrones” has become a global sensation. It’s the biggest success story in the history of HBO, it draws enormous ratings, and its merchandising is off the charts. It manages to bring them countless money and attention, and this is with it only airing for ten weeks a year.
When you think about it, it is somewhat surprising that this is a show that has not been a subject of any spin-off conversation really. Sure, we know that the books are following the George R.R. Martin source material at least relatively closely, and as a result of that coming up with something else would cause the show to need to create new material in the same canon, at least for the most part. Still, it’s far from impossible. Just think about the possibilities: A show featuring a far-off realm in the Seven Kingdoms, a focus on a small family trying to keep themselves together in the shadow of massive bloodshed, or even a prequel series that gives you more insight into a group like the Night’s Watch.
For the sake of this Spin-Off Goals article feature, we’re specifically focusing on the latter idea, since it is the one that feels on paper to be the most intriguing.
Why the Night’s Watch? – While they haven’t always been the most interesting of the main “Game of Thrones” storylines, there’s something inherently interesting about a group of people who are outcasts from the world, how they function, and the longstanding history that they have with the White Walkers. Also, we feel like there is so much more history to uncover beyond what has been explored on the show proper.
The idea – Go back either all the way to the beginning or close to it, and see how this group started thousands of years ago and become protectors of the Wall. This has been explored somewhat in A Song of Ice and Fire, and that could be the basis to a new series. It’s so far in the past that it wouldn’t be all that connected to the flagship series, and it would be interesting as a result to see some significant world-building for what we’ve come to know so well.
Will it happen? – For the time being, we don’t know how you can feel altogether confident about it since HBO clearly has their hands full with “Game of Thrones” proper. However, in the event it ends after season 8, we could easily see the show looking at other ways to expand the franchise. Maybe they’ll do a sequel, but this is one of the rare cases we’d be just as interested in seeing what came before the events of present-day.