Game of Thrones: AT&T once asked showrunners if HBO series could be shot vertically for cell phones
Game of Thrones? More like Game of Phones!
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According to a new WSJ Magazine interview with Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, weird pacing and strange lighting issues should have been the least of our worries when trying to watch Game of Thrones on HBO.
In fact - according to Benioff and Weiss, HBO's then-owners AT&T once asked them whether the flagship show could be shot vertically for cell phone watching. Apparently, they also considered mini versions of the episodes too - perhaps trying to go after the cell phone generation that short-lived streamer Quibi also chased.
In the interview, Benioff and Weiss, who now share that they had pitched three feature films as their conclusion to Game of Thrones, as opposed to what ended up being the highly panned final televised season, cited the instability of Warner Bros (Or as Benioff puts it, "you want that company to be stable so you can be left alone to do your work and not have to worry about it being bought by the phone company.") as the reason why they turned to Netflix for their next project, 3 Body Problem.
But what do we (and Benioff and Weiss) know? Perhaps a vertical Game of Thrones could have been a hit. Phone companies are famous for having brilliant ideas on what prestige television should look like. (Excuse my eyeroll)
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