Could A 'GoT' Spinoff Ever Happen?

Game of Thrones is HBO's most popular show ever. It's screened in 170 countries, and garners up to 20 million viewers domestically. Which makes it all the more surprising that the Game of Thrones team has said no to spinoffs. Ever since Thursday's news that Game of Thrones might end after a shortened Season 7 and 8, fans and bloggers alike have been speculating what the wildly successful franchise's next move would be — and it's not too comforting to know that spinoffs might not be an option.

Given the wealth of characters and locations the show boasts, it seems like an obvious move (to me, at least) to focus on a minor character in a spinoff. One of the two showrunners, David Benioff, has also agreed with this, arguing that George R. R. Martin's minor characters are richly written enough to support their own solo shows. “We could easily write a show about just, say, Bronn – The Bronn Show,” Benioff previously said during the production of Season 3, according to EW. “We could do a great half-hour comedy with Sam and Gilly. It’s an embarrassment of riches. There are so many great characters and you want to spend more time with them.” But nope. Hold your horses. We're getting carried away. Speaking to EW, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo was been pretty final on the topic:

“No, if that were to happen it would have to come from [Benioff and Weiss] really feeling something, or [George R.R. Martin] really feeling that it was the right thing to do. Not knowing how this particular story ends, I don’t know. There are plenty of characters, secondary characters, [that] you could build a world around. We’re always going to be drawn to a strong creative vision. But we are not going to do that unless we feel their passion.”

Quite, Cersei. Quite. Dan Weiss, the second of the two showrunners, agreed with Lombardo, arguing:

“No, we don’t talk about that stuff. The job at hand is too enormous and challenging to be further diffusing ourselves by thinking about spinoffs, and theme park rides, and ice ballets … but if anybody has a good pitch for a good Game of Thrones ice ballet, let us know.”

While I can't think of anything I'd rather see than a Game of Thrones ice ballet, I guess they're now at the most challenging part of adaptation: doing the ending of the series justice, so I reluctantly concede that maybe their concentration might be best reserved for Season 7 and 8 – rather than the ice ballet of my dreams. However, once the show comes to a close... well, that's a different story. See you at the Ice Theatre of New York.

Images: HBO; Giphy