Heading into season 2, Game of Thrones received a 15% increase in its budget. As opposed to the season 1’s reported $6M per episode budget, the following season reportedly cost $7M per episode. This was also the first season that delved into the first major battle sequence of the show, the Battle of Blackwater, for which the showrunners were given an additional million.
Although Blackwater currently sits at an impressive 9.7 rating on the IMDb, things could’ve gone very differently had the original director never taken off at the last minute.
The original director for Game of Thrones‘ Blackwater left the episode in a limbo
In contrast to the grand scale of the battle that fans witnessed on the small screen, the initially planned sequence, which was orchestrated by Blackwater‘s original director, who remains undisclosed, was “cut down to its barest necessities.” George R.R. Martin, who wrote the episode, was forced to exclude a plethora of elements upon the director’s insistence.
As if things weren’t taxing enough, barely a month before the shooting was set to begin, the original director departed due to an “unexpected family medical emergency” (via Vanity Fair).
We had a director who kept saying, ‘Cut this! Cut that! I can’t make the day.’ I kept removing elements and it was getting to the point where it was getting as bad as the jousting tournament. And then, just a few weeks before filming, the director had an unexpected family medical emergency and had to drop out.
With no definitive plan in sight, the producers then turned to a director, who was previously rejected by the HBO suits.
Neil Marshall arrived to Blackwater‘s rescue
Even though Neil Marshall wasn’t well-versed in Game of Thrones then, the genre was certainly his forte. Considering the producers were eying for an action-driven director as the replacement, Marshall, who was initially rejected from helming a GOT episode, was brought in to fix the ship within a week of notice.
What followed was a pivotal point in GOT history, as opposed to the original director’s approach, Marshall reinstated the original elements from Martin’s script, and the latter even deemed Marshall the hero of the episode.
Neil Marshall reversed everything the previous director said. Marshall was like, ‘Put in more.’ He put so much back that I’d previously taken out and even added some stuff I hadn’t thought of. He was the hero of that episode.
Marshall was later brought in to helm the season 4 finale, The Watchers on the Wall, which earned the filmmaker an Emmy nod for best director.
Game of Thrones is available to stream on Max.
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