Last summer at San Diego Comic-Con International, George R.R. Martin made the surprise announcement that he would not write a script for Game of Thrones Season 5. Instead, Martin said he intended to focus on writing The Winds of Winter, his sixth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series that Game of Thrones is based upon.
However, The Winds of Winter will not be released in 2015 and now Martin is pulling back even further. On his LiveJournal, (via IGN) Martin revealed that he is not writing for Game of Thrones Season 6 and he is also skipping this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
“After wrestling with it for a month or so, I’ve decided not to script an episode for season six of Game of Thrones,” said Martin. “Writing a script takes me three weeks, minimum, and longer when it is not a straight adaptation from the novels. And really, it would cost me more time than that, since I have never been good at changing gears from one medium to another and back again.”
“Writing a season six script would cost me a month’s work on WINDS, and maybe as much as six weeks, and I cannot afford that,” continued Martin. “With [Game of Thrones executive producers] David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Bryan Cogman on board, the scriptwriting chores for season six should be well covered. My energies are best devoted to WINDS.”
Related: Game of Thrones TV Series Will Spoil Ending of The Novels
Martin also noted that The Winds of Winter isn’t the only project demanding his attention.
“When I say, ‘my plate is full,’ I don’t just mean with WINDS,” explained Martin. “I am still editing the latest Wild Cards volume, HIGH STAKES. I have an overall deal with HBO, and three new television concepts in various stages of development, with a variety of collaborators and partners. I am consulting on a couple of video games. There’s the Wild Cards movie at Universal, where I’m a producer. And I’ve recently formed a new production company to make low budget short films based on a trio of classic short stories by… well, no, not yet, that would be telling. Premature telling.”
Weiss and Benioff recently acknowledged that Game of Thrones will spoil the events of Martin’s final two novels because they won’t be finished in time. But they added that plans for that eventuality were made with Martin’s participation.
Game of Thrones Season 5 will premiere on Sunday, April 12 on HBO.
