Would Game of Thrones Been Better As A Movie?

While we’re all still waiting on George R.R. Martin to finish The Winds of Winter, the show finished up almost two years ago. With a spinoff on the way, even with a terrible ending, we can’t wait for more Game of Thrones. Spanning 8 years and 8 seasons, the GoT craze was all everyone talked about.

“George R.R. Martin’s best-selling book series “A Song of Ice and Fire” is brought to the screen as HBO sinks its considerable storytelling teeth into the medieval fantasy epic. It’s the depiction of two powerful families — kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and honest men — playing a deadly game for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and to sit atop the Iron Throne.”

With the current streaming landscape, so many studios are putting out fantastic content. Rather than cramming trilogies and franchises down our throats at the box office, most movies would be better suited to transition to the small screen. One of the few exceptions was Game of Thrones despite the success. While going back and reading the books, the show feels like we were robbed of some of the best plot points.

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Due to budget constraints, the show would largely cut out some of the larger storylines that would thrust it further into the fantasy realm. Despite the White Walkers and dragons, the show was more character-driven and shifted it creatively towards realism. The television version of Game of Thrones borrowed some of the larger fantasy parts of the book but left out some of the more important ones such as Lady Stoneheart.

This isn’t just the standard “the books are always better” situation. Typically books are at the reader’s pace so the storyteller can get deeper in describing characters, their emotion, and interactions but this isn’t it. Sadly, the show feels like they borrowed the best portion of the books and left the ones they couldn’t fit into the budget out despite their weight on the main story.

If Harry Potter can get into 8 movies, totaling almost 18 hours of content then Game of Thrones should have got similar treatment. Yes, 8 seasons with almost 60 hours of the show far surpassed Harry Potter’s grand total, but there were still 7 books told over 8 movies. A Song of Fire and Ice right now is still just 5 books. If they would’ve taken the budget to bring this epic tale to life, we would be able to fit in more important roles and cut the filler episodes.

Despite how much the show filled the void for good tv, the small screen adaptation feels like we missed out on so much more. Rumor has it the books will end much different but they almost have to. The tone of the show focused on feeding the story to everyone’s favorite characters rather than letting the source material unfold on screen. Game of Thrones was never without its faults, but we have to wonder how much more we would’ve got if on a bigger budget.

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Superhero films cost upwards of $200 million to make. At the height of its popularity Game of Thrones in the final season cost $15 million per episode. Their final season would be just 6 episodes bringing their grand total to $90 million. Could we have got more of the story with a larger budget on a theatrical release? Even Harry Potter averaged just north of $120 million per movie.

Despite what we missed out on, we can’t wait for more Game of Thrones. With the spinoff House of the Dragon set to release next year, we’re already on board. Despite getting more of the world we love, some of our better moments with these characters will remain unseen.