Game of Thrones showrunners turned down producer credits for House of the Dragon and future spinoffs

The debate surrounding Game of Thrones season 8 continues to plague many ardent fans of the program. Talk about HBO’s commercially successful mint hasn’t stopped even after production wrapped up over five years ago.

A lot of fans still blame showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for bringing out a poorly-written and rather rushed final season and even filed a petition. The duo then decided to alienate themselves from the franchise completely, even from future Game of Thrones spinoffs.

HBO was surprised when Game of Thrones showrunners refused credits on spinoffs

The wounds that were left with the criticism that they received for the controversial finale are still fresh in Benioff and Weiss’ minds. It was quite evident when they revealed that they decided not to get credits for any future Game of Thrones projects.

In a recent interview with THR, Benioff recalled, “HBO was kind of confused. I remember their lawyer saying, ‘But it’s just money, we’re just going to pay you.’ ”

Weiss chimed in, “I don’t think there is such a thing as free money. For us, if our name is on it, especially that, while being completely detached and uninvolved, it felt like the strain that would come with that hands-off approach — with its success or failure or anything in between — was not worth it.” 

Game of Thrones showrunners hoped fans loved the final season

Benioff and Weiss are well aware of how most of the Game of Thrones community reacted to the finale. They hoped that Season 8 would be the crown jewel of their masterpiece, but it ended up being far from it. Benioff said,

“You always hope everyone’s going to love anything you do and it would’ve been great if 100 percent of people loved it, but they didn’t. You can get so bogged down in public opinion that you spend your whole life googling things and trying to find people who felt one way or the other way.” 

Weiss added, “Even super positive feedback makes you feel weird and teeth-grindy and on edge. There’s a drug quality to the feedback, and as soon as we went cold turkey — the last time I googled myself was in 2013 — the ambient stress level in our lives dropped by about 50 percent overnight.”

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