HBO's Game of Thrones Renewed for Third Season

You might be familiar with our weekly series The Game of Thrones Index, and could surmise that we here at New York Press are big Game of Thrones fans. All GT aficionados out there got a bit of good news today as HBO announced they will renew the show for a third season. "Series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss raised our expectations for the second season ? and then surpassed them," said Michael Lombardo, president of HBO Programming, in a statement. "We are thrilled by all the viewer and media support we've received for the series, and can't wait to see what Dan and David have in store for next season." The show, based on the bestselling fantasy book series by George R. R. Martin, garnered 8.3 million viewers for its second season premiere on April 1, 2012, and is expected "to surpass the season one average of 9.3 million viewers." It's too soon to tell what the price tag for season three will be. Season one reportedly cost HBO between $50 to $60 million to make, a small price to pay for the several interweaving stories that often require epic battle scenes with horses, fires, stunts and hundreds of extras. The second season apparently cost roughly 15 percent more than the first, but for HBO it appears well worth it. According to Slate's June Thomas, HBO was able to defray roughly half of the production costs of the first season through its international sales and the box set of the first season sold 350,000 units in its first week.