Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, featuring a predominantly British cast. The series is based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of seven planned fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones. The series debuted in the U.S. on April 17, 2011.

Game of Thrones has been extremely well received critically, and has garnered a loyal fanbase. The series was picked up for a second season on April 19, 2011, two days after its premiere.

Conception and development

The series began development in January 2007.HBO, after acquiring the rights to the novels with the intent of turning them into an international cable television series, hired David Benioff and D. B. Weiss to write and executive produce the series, which would cover one novel's worth of material per season. Initially, it was planned that Benioff and Weiss would write every episode save one per season, which author and co-executive producer George R. R. Martin was attached to write. However, Jane Espenson and Bryan Cogman were later added to each write one episode of the first season.

"The Sopranos in Middle-earth" is the tagline Benioff jokingly suggested for the television adaptation, referring to its intrigue-filled content and dark tone set in a fantasy world setting. Traditional high fantasy is described as generally incidental to the series, with HBO programming chief Michael Lombardo finding the storytelling appealing rather than the low-key magic or the exotic milieu, in spite of the network's new developmental policy to "[take] shots at shows that we wouldn't have taken a shot at five years ago."

The Game of Thrones's budget has been compared to that of Rome. The pilot reportedly cost HBO between US$5–10 million, and the total budget for the first season has been estimated at US$50–60 million.

HBO hired expert language creator David J. Peterson from the Language Creation Society to develop the Dothraki language – "possessing its own unique sound, extensive vocabulary of more than 1,800 words and complex grammatical structure" – to be used in the series. The first and second drafts of the pilot script, written by Benioff and Weiss, were submitted in August 2007 and June 2008, respectively. While HBO found both drafts to their liking, a pilot was not ordered until November 2008, with the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike possibly delaying the process.

 Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones