here is to hoping the series is completed before 2020

Oh, you have a favorite character? Not anymore!

So we're done with the first two books.

Book three is going to last two television seasons.

Books four and five together might take another three television seasons.

He's in the middle of writing books six and seven?

Is he stopping at 7?

Yes, seven. As far as we know.

My hunch is they re-write the books after book four and throw out a lot of useless material.

I read dance of dragons. Read the reviews. There are probably 2 whole books worth of words that are completely wasted in the series; Martin is a great writer, I'm not sure if the publisher, editor or the man himself, but they do seem to be needlessly drawing out the book.

2 more left; the show might beat the book, ha: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire

Here are the odds of the television series getting made to completion: http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/the-night-is-dark-and-full-of-terrors-ending-game-of-thrones.php

The most likely thing to kill it is the source material not being completed by Martin.

Second most likely is the length -- 5016 pages have been written by Martin so far and that doesn't include books 6 and 7.

And if those two things don't kill it, the costs likely will. It has costed $6.5 million per hour so far.

On the other hand, the $29mm in season 1 DVD sales + $29mm in season 1 Blu ray sales + ??? In iTunes and Amazon streaming sales = already turning a profit.

The article also mentions that Game of Thrones, along with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, are the finest dramas on TV today.

(Personally I'd add Walking Dead in there, too. Possibly The Newsroom, too.)

I enjoy the newsroom. This is a fantastic analysis, thanks for sharing! Very insightful.

This, by the way, ignores other forms of revenue: books sold, merchandise, etc. undoubtedly the books hit the Best sellers due to the show.

This line is hilarious:

If the show continues to print money and cultivate a rabid fanbase it will be exceedingly difficult for HBO to pull the plug. Nor would they want to. In the eyes of fans, HBO prematurely ending the series would be an offense on the level of clubbing a baby seal to death with a kitten. We live in a world where thousands of people mailed peanuts to a network in the hopes of keeping Skeet Ulrich on their television sets just a year longer. Successfully. Imagine the reaction if this show met a similar fate. Rubber heads on spikes sent to HBO offices? Network president Michael Lombardo’s name delivered up to the red god?

It occurs to me that people who watch the television series are not used to the kind of waiting that the fans who read the books have had to put up with:

Hahahaha. So true! My brother got me the series for my birthday 7 years ago.

Truly, what do the fans know of waiting?

We who have waited will enjoy the best reward: the end of the best series ever written.

No, not game of thrones...

The wheel of time.

The wheel of time?

Harry Potter is for children.

Game of Thrones is for adolescents.

The Wheel of Time is for adults.

All great works; all different levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time

In my opinion, the greatest book series ever written.

Disagree!!!!!!

David, I have the eye of the world here with me so I will give it another try. I remember not even finishing this book in high school though because of how much I thought it ripped off of Tolkien at the time. However, I cannot imagine it being a better series than ASoIaF (aka GoT). Nor can I see way the argument would be that Wheel of Time is more mature than Game of Thrones. I'll you know how the retry goes.

LMK what you think, Jared. I meant depth and advancement of the fantasy world.

WoT > LOTR

The second attempt went poorly. I got a couple hundred pages in and I was not able to finish the book.  

Wow. That says something. Unfinishable!