Game of Thrones is going to shoot "multiple" endings for final season to combat leaks
But just how well will it work?
Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss will be shooting multiple endings of the fantasy show’s finale to prevent spoilers from leaking.
"I know in Game of Thrones, the ending, they're going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really knows what happens," said HBO president of programming Casey Bloys in a recent chat with Pennsylvania's Morning Call.
He continued: “You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”
At first it might seem like a clever strategy – not even the stars themselves will know what is in store for Westeros. Plus, shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos successfully kept plot secrets under wraps by shooting alternative endings.
However, whether it’ll work with Game of Thrones is another question. Leaks during its last season came after cyber attacks (and an epic blunder when HBO Spain played the wrong episode) – film all the endings you want, but the world will know the real one if the final episode is leaked.
Also, Kit Harington (Jon Snow) claimed the show employed a similar strategy for season seven. “What I can say about this season is we had a lot of paparazzi following us around, especially when we were in Spain, but we did fake some scenes,” he explained to Jimmy Kimmel in July. “We put together people in situations where we knew the paparazzi were around so they’d take photos and they’d get on the internet.”
Either this was a bluff, or paparazzi did actually get hold of photos that failed to circulate the web far and wide, but the ploy didn't work. The plot leaked anyway and before the season aired we got plenty of hints that Snow and Daenerys would meet on Dragonstone.
So, although this technique has worked for other shows, the three-eyed-hacker-ravens of the web might still spoil the surprise.
