Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss, David Benioff set next HBO series
Today, it was announced that the two parties are in the process of developing for the network a new drama series entitled Confederate, a series that is set in an alternate universe where the United States and the Confederate States are still separate and are gearing up for the Third American Civil War. this is a universe where slavery still exists in the south, and is a major part of its everyday life. While this is a very different sort of show than Game of Thrones, it’s not altogether difficult to create some of the natural parallels. Think for a moment about the presence of slavery on that show, and Daenerys’ attempts to free many people and have them willingly serve under her. There is a heavy presence of slavery within this show, but because there is so much going on in that world, there’s not all that much time to be able to focus in on much of it individually.
These two aforementioned showrunners are teaming up with two other writer-executive producers for the project in Nichelle Tramble Spellman and Malcolm Spellman. The show seems interested in setting up its creative team early, even though we’re discussing a series that is more than likely two years out at the earliest. There is one more season of Game of Thrones to be filmed, and even it will not be premiering on the network until the middle of next year at the earliest:
In a statement discussing this new series even further, Benioff and Weiss had the following to say:
“We have discussed Confederate for years, originally as a concept for a feature film … But our experience on Thrones has convinced us that no one provides a bigger, better storytelling canvas than HBO. There won’t be dragons or White Walkers in this series, but we are creating a world, and we couldn’t imagine better partners in world-building than Nichelle and Malcolm, who have impressed us for a long time with their wit, their imagination and their Scrabble-playing skills.”
This sounds as though it could be an interesting idea, especially in terms of drawing parallels between the era of slavery and what is actually happening in modern day America. Now, what we wonder is this: Did we really need Benioff and Weiss to do another show so soon? We’re rather surprised that they didn’t want to take more of a break given how exhausting and time-consuming of a process Game of Thrones is. Granted, we’re not all that upset about the idea of getting to see more of their work soon.
Remember as well that this is far from the only high-profile project that HBO is developing at the moment; they are also reportedly teaming up with Damon Lindelof of Lost/The Leftovers for a new version of Watchmen, which was last a controversial motion picture directed by Zack Snyder.