Director Alan Taylor Hopes to Direct Game of Thrones Season 7
One of the things that struck me last week when the Game of Thrones director’s line up was released was that though three of the five directors were returning veterans of the show, all of them were only from Season 5. Those from Season 5 who had directed earlier seasons, like David Nutter, were not back this year. And after being some of the go-to directors of the earlier seasons, Alex Graves, Alan Taylor, Alik Sakharov and Michelle MacLaren have all been AWOL since Season 4.
Were Benioff and Weiss not happy with their work? Was there some conspiracy to have a different go-to-team for the back half of the series now that the show is fully “off book’? It turns out, in the case of Alan Taylor anyway, that nothing so conspiracy minded is happening here. it’s really about that six month commitment time table the show required.
Speaking to Zap2It, Taylor, who just finished working with Emilia Clarke in Terminator: Genysis, admitted he really wanted to do Season 6.
“I want to [direct an episode]. I keep telling them I want to. We actually had a conversation — David and Dan and I — about next season. It’s just making it happen for real,” he says. “It was Season 6 that we were talking about, and it wasn’t going to happen. I wanted it to happen, but it’s just a schedule thing. I’ll keep pinning my hopes on the next season.”
Though HBO has not actually announced that Season 7 has been greenlit, with the actors signed through that season and the show’s ratings still spiking, the assumption is that announcement will come sooner rather than later. (Actually, if history is any guide, it will come the Monday after Season 6 debuts.) Rumor has it that part of the hold up is that Benioff and Weiss want Season 7 to be the final season, and HBO is pushing for them to go at least one more past that. Most of the time the directors hold the “70 episodes, no more no less” line, but here and there they’ve acceded that the show could perhaps have a Season 8, or maybe a partial one.
Even so, with not much left after this, Taylor plans to work doubly hard to get himself back to Westeros one more time before the series finale. “I’ll be out saying, ‘Hey!'” he says with a laugh.
Spoiler Alert!
Please take care to tag spoilers in your comments by wrapping them with <spoiler></spoiler>. Spoilers in comments are hidden by a gray overlay. To reveal, simply hover or tap on the text!