Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
The episodes this season are now about 1:20 long. 6 episodes = 480 minutes
They used to be about 60 minutes. 8 episodes = 480 minutes.
They've been splitting the same amount of screen time into fewer episodes, because the central cast (lead by the Breaker of Chains who else  ) collectively negotiated a really high per episode salary ($500.000 per actor per episode).
Cutting the same amount of footage into fewer longer episodes saves HBO something in the ballpark of an 8 digit number. |
The first two episodes were under an hour each, so there's only 4 with the extended run time. Plus as noted in that article HBO wanted to keep throwing money at this show, they would have preferred to have 7 or even 8+ seasons with 10 episodes each, but the writers insisted on this truncated format