David Benioff, producer of popular HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, has mentioned that the next season of the show may include a merging of books four and five, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
The show currently follows the novels written by George R.R. Martin fairly closely, which could prove problematic for future seasons as “book four is considered the weakest,” according to Entertainment Weekly. Several of the main characters are removed and there are new additions that may not be popular amongst Game of Thrones’ die hard fan community.
That’s not to say that all elements of book four will be omitted from the future story line. When asked about what will be included, Benioff said, “The series has already reached a point where there are so many characters, particularly in season three we’re introducing so many new ones, we run the risk of bursting at the seams as we try to cram every single subplot and all the various characters and it becomes impossible on a budgetary level and it becomes impossible on an episode-basis to jump around every few minutes to 30 different characters and locations. We don’t want to do that, and recognize that as a real risk and we will take steps not to fall into that trap,” quoted by Entertainment Weekly.
As of right now there are a total of five books written by Martin, and he is currently working on the sixth. According to Indiewire, he has become notorious for the delayed release of his work. When asked about the possibility of the HBO series catching up to his writing, he confidently responded with, “I still have a lead of several gigantic books. If they include everything in the books, I don’t think they’re going to catch up with me.”
Game of Thrones has recently wrapped up it’s third season on HBO, leaving fans with some incredibly shocking events.