Game of Thrones propelled George R.R. Martin to new levels of fame and he made a fortune from the TV series. While he is popular among fans as the author of the book, A Song of Ice and Fire, many don’t know that Martin took on TV writing as a career at one point. He famously worked on the HBO series The Hitchhiker, the ’80s revival of The Twilight Zone, and the 1987 series Beauty and the Beast.
If his stint as a TV writer surprised you, then you’d be shocked to know that he was rejected for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The reason for his rejection sounds like a joke considering that he has produced the story for one of the greatest TV shows ever.
George R.R. Martin was rejected as a writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation
George R.R. Martin is struggling to complete his last two books in A Song of Ice and Fire series. The Winds of Water was promised to come out before Game of Thrones ended. However, it has been six years since the show ended and there’s no sign of Martin’s sixth book yet. Many fans speculated that Martin’s affinity towards TV adaptations may have kept him from writing his novel.
They shared that the author was a TV writer at one point and the allure might still tempt Martin. He has written for a few shows in the ’80s and ’90s. Surprisingly, he was also rejected for writing gigs, with Martin specifically mentioning his rejection for a gig on Star Trek: The Next Generation (via TrekMovie).
He opened up about the interview for the job during his appearance at UCSD’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination in 2017. He shared that he interviewed for a staff writer job on TNG with a producer. Martin told him that he was primarily a sci-fi writer, which decided the fate of his interview. The producer’s reply was weird and surprising. Martin shared:
I remember coming into the office of this producer –- who thankfully did not last long on the show and you can see why when I tell the story, said ‘I don’t know who you are, can you tell me your credentials?’ And I said ‘I am just coming off ‘Twilight Zone’ where I worked for a while, but before that I wrote novels and short stories. I am primarily a science fiction writer.’ And he said ‘Oh really, well ‘Star Trek’ is not a science-fiction show, it is a people show.’
It is hard to believe that Martin, who wrote complex characters for Game of Thrones, wasn’t trusted with the Star Trek script. He joked about the producer’s comment, sharing, “I was fooled by the photon torpedoes and starships.” The producer was too quick to judge Martin during the interview.
What’s the status of George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Water?
Even Game of Thrones managed to outpace George R.R. Martin’s slow writing of the book. According to Martin, the novel is approximately more than 1,500 pages long and he had written almost 1,100 to 1,200 pages (via THR). He had provided a hard estimate on the novel’s release date several times, but the author failed to finish the work on time.
During an interview with Vanity Fair in 2022, he revealed that he had given up hope on predicting the end of the novel. He shared:
I’m making progress, but I’ve given up on any hope of predicting the end. Every time I do, I don’t make it and everybody gets mad at me, and there’s no sense. It’ll be done when it’s done.
During his appearance at Oxford Writers’ House in August 2024, Martin was asked if he’d change anything from the books. In response, he humorously addressed the delay of The Winds of Winter. He shared, “I don’t know, I could probably change more than one thing. If I could change one thing about one of my books, I’d have them finished” (via GamesRadar).
Fans can now enjoy the screen adaptations of Martin’s works, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, streaming on Max.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
