Rumors swirl of advance screenings of Thrones

There are rumors swirling that advance screenings of Game of Thrones are taking place both in the UK and Canada.

First, Ran from Westeros reports that last week executives from international broadcasters were in London to view the first two episodes of Thrones. This was done to both showcase the show to those who had already purchased the rights and also to get those who may have been on the fence interested in buying the rights in their country.

And then today we have two very unsubstantiated rumors of screenings to take place this week. One rumor, from the comments to our previous post, is that there is to be an advance screening of the first two episodes in London later this week for cast, crew and executives. The other report comes from a Toronto Maple Leafs fan site where a commenter claims he will be attending a screening for the series premiere today. The speculation being this would be some sort of screening for HBO Canada execs.

Winter Is Coming: Take those last two rumors with a large grain of salt, although Ran’s report does lend a certain amount of believability to the first one. If they already have two episodes ready to show to execs, it would make sense to invite certain cast and crew to screen them as well. At any rate, it seems that the first two episodes are very nearly complete, so expect HBO to begin showing them off to more and more people in the coming days.

UPDATE: Ran has a small update regarding the recent screening to foreign broadcast execs. He tweets:

A tidbit from the screening of 2 #GameOfThrones eps to international broadcasters: response was VERY positive. Expect more rights sales.

• Published on 02/15/2011 at 11:52 AM CDT
• Last updated on 02/15/2011 at 2:24 PM CDT