Game of Thrones creators sign $200 million deal with Netflix

Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss have signed an exclusive multi-year content deal with Netflix.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the deal is worth around $200 million.

For context, this is the same amount that Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are on track to earn from HBO once the sci-fi western series reaches its fifth season. This is also more than the $150 million deal that Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes landed with Netflix in 2017, although it’s less than the $300 million that American Horror Story co-creator Ryan Murphy stands to earn from the streaming giant.

In July, Benioff and Weiss were reportedly also being courted by Amazon and Disney before settling on Netflix. However, the pair is still working with Disney on an untitled trilogy of Star Wars films, the first of which is set to debut in 2022. Given that prior commitment, it remains to be seen when the first of Benioff and Weiss’ Netflix projects will eventually be released.

Benioff and Weiss are coming off a long-running stint as creators and showrunners of HBO’s massively popular Game of Thrones fantasy drama series, which ended in May. However, the pair has proven to be controversial in the wake of the series’ eighth and final season.

More than 1.7 million people have signed a petition to get HBO to remake Game of Thrones Season 8, although the network’s boss has, unsurprisingly, said this will not happen. Angry fans have also exploited Google’s algorithms to ensure that searches of “bad writers” result in pictures of Benioff and Weiss popping up.

Still, the final season of Game of Thrones brought in record-high viewership for HBO, as well as the Bell-owned Crave service on which it was streamed. The series’ swan song even brought in the highest number of Emmy nominations that any program has ever received in a single season.

Image credit: Emmys

Source: The Hollywood Reporter