Budget restrictions have always been the greatest limitation on creativity in the TV and film industry, and that holds true even for giants of the screen like HBO’s popular fantasy drama Game of Thrones. In a recent interview with the UFC Unfiltered podcast, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss discussed a key action sequence that had to be cut from the show.
Via digitalspy.com,
“Tyrion Lannister follows The Mountain into combat – and we were really excited. We were going to have the camera at Peter Dinklage’s eye level and have him follow this giant, The Mountain, into battle and just see everything.”
The scene they’re referring to is way back in the first season of Game of Thrones. Tyrion, played by the 4’5″ Peter Dinklage, rides into battle with the Lannister army against a small force sent by the Starks. The actor who played The Mountain at the time, Conan Stevens, is over 7 feet tall, making for quite a contrast.
Due to budget limitations, however, the scene never happened, and the battle was instead resolved with Tyrion waking up in the aftermath of the Lannister victory. The showrunners actually expressed relief that they weren’t able to shoot it, looking back. “In a way, I think it’s probably better that we couldn’t do it,” they said, “because it never would have measured up to what we were able to do later.”
And they were probably right. Thrones has had some incredible battle scenes since the first season, including season 2’s “Blackwater,” season 4’s “The Watchers on the Wall,” season 5’s “Hardhome,” and most recently season 6’s “Battle of the Bastards.”
In other Thrones news, season 7 has been confirmed to debut later than usual, due to the need for more snowy locales to shoot in, which has pushed back production. It will also have fewer episodes than normal season, as the showrunners have said their plan is to complete the show with about 13 or so more episodes.
The directors signed for season 7 were also revealed back in late June. Sadly, Miguel Sapochnik is nowhere to be seen on the list. Sapochnik’s work on the show includes the final two episodes of season 6, as well as the excellent “Hardhome” episode from season 5. His directing earned him a recent Emmy nomination, adding to the total of 23 that the show earned this year. Game of Thrones remains the most nominated show for the third year running.
