The two showrunners are looking back at the hit HBO series ahead of the release of their new series, '3 Body Problem.'
To say the Game of Thrones series finale was divisive is something of an understatement. The polarizing conclusion to the beloved HBO franchise left many fans reeling -- although it didn't seem to diminish the public's appetite for stories set in the same universe.
However, for series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, it was important for them to tune out the noise and the feedback and focus on their creative process.
The pair recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for a conversation about their upcoming sci-fi drama 3 Body Problem, and the pair reflected on how they tried not to get too caught up in how the public reacted to the GoT finale.
"You always hope everyone's going to love anything you do and it would've been great if 100 percent of people loved it," Benioff shared. "But they didn't."
"You can get so bogged down in public opinion that you spend your whole life googling things and trying to find people who felt one way or the other way," Benioff added.
"Even super positive feedback makes you feel weird and teeth-grindy and on edge," Weiss added. "There's a drug quality to the feedback, and as soon as we went cold turkey -- the last time I googled myself was in 2013 -- the ambient stress level in our lives dropped by about 50 percent overnight."
Now, with their new sci-fi series coming in March -- based on the popular, acclaimed novel by Liu Cixin -- the pair explained that they still had to work hard to get the show picked up, despite Game of Thrones' success.
"It's great we won a bunch of awards, but that was a while ago," Benioff explained. "You have to keep proving yourself."
"What excited us about Thrones when we read George's books was that this was something we had never seen onscreen before," Weiss shared. "In a lot of ways, [3 Body Problem] couldn't be more different from Game of Thrones, but it had that in common."
"It was the first thing we'd come across since Thrones where we were actually scared," Benioff added. "We knew this is going to be hard."
3 Body Problem is set to premiere Mar. 21 on Netflix.
RELATED CONTENT:
