Why George RR Martin Broke Hollywood’s Cardinal Rule

You may know George RR Martin as the mind behind the greatest book and TV show in history: Game of Thrones. But what you probably don’t realize is that he has also self-financed four short films based on the stories of a dear friend.

In the early 1960s, a 15-year-old Martin was in Bayonne, New Jersey, in search of a very rare DC comic book. “The brave and the bold #28 was very important,” says the literary giant The Hollywood Reporter. “Because it was the first appearance of the Justice League of America.”

The author managed to find and buy the comic – for a quarter – from a fellow teenage boy in Arlington, Texas. This boy’s name was Howard Waldrop, and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. “I love the guy. I still miss him,” says Martin. “He was definitely my oldest friend in the science fiction and fantasy world.”

Waldrop was an American science fiction author who worked primarily with short fiction. He spent most of his life in Austin, Texas, where he often combined elements of alternative history, pop culture, the American South, old movies or classical mythology in his writing. His work was partially celebrated – in 2021 he was honored with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Waldrop is generally considered more of a cult figure compared to his peer, Martin, who went on to experience great mainstream success.

Martin and Waldrop remained friends until January of this year, when Waldrop died of a stroke on the 14th.

“We started writing letters to each other, actual letters — that was something we had in those days,” Martin says of the comic book purchase. “We just hit it off from afar. We were both aspiring writers. That was our first exchange. It was in 1963, there was a guy named John F. Kennedy in the White House. (But) I didn’t actually meet Howard in person before 1972.”

Now Martin has paid tribute to his old friend by producing a short film – one that he hopes will be an Oscar contender – based on one of Waldrop’s short stories: The ugly chickensproduced by Martin, was written by Michael Cassutt and directed by Mark Raso. The half-hour film is adapted from Waldrop’s short film of the same name (which won him a Nebula Award in 1980).

Martin and Waldrop’s relationship weathered the stormy seas of Martin’s stratospheric rise to fame when HBO acquired the television rights to Game of Thrones in 2008. The same success had not quite found Waldrop. “Howard was not commercial,” says Martin. “I wrote a lot of short stories and sold them, but eventually I started writing novels and series, because you can’t make a living from short stories. They didn’t pay very much.”

This is not to say that Waldrop was not talented – on the contrary, says Martin: “He was a great writer. There was no one like Howard.” And it’s not as if Waldrop’s career was without recognition. But his peers, including Martin, worried about his finances and health towards the end of his life. With the financial success Martin enjoyed thanks to Throneshe wanted to make a deal to turn some of Waldrop’s stories into short films, but it wasn’t easy.

“It’s hard to get someone to finance a short film,” says Martin THR. “Cinemas don’t want to show short films. I own a cinema myself, so I know it well. And it’s hard to get the big studios to make them. I tried for a number of years… I finally gave up.”

Then the author decided to break the “cardinal rule of Hollywood.”

As Waldrop’s health deteriorated, Martin was determined to honor his friend by bringing his work to the big screen. “The cardinal rule of Hollywood is: Never use your own money. I broke that. I (thought), ‘Damn, I’m going to use my own money,'” he adds. “So we put these movies into production — three of them are now finished . Two more are in post-production.”

The ugly chickensstarring Felicia Day (Supernatural, The guild), has been recorded alongside adaptations of Waldrop’s short stories Mary-Margaret Road Grader and Night of the Cooters. The films are now showing on the festival circuit, with Chickens already secured a Best Short Film nomination at the HollyShorts Film Festival (the Oscar-eligible short film festival based in Los Angeles) and a Special Mention at the DuHok Film Festival in Iraq.

The ugly chickens is about a professor, Paula Linberl, who, after learning that the supposedly extinct dodo bird may still exist, embarks on a cross-country expedition to unravel the mystery. “I think environmentalism is what you look at,” Martin says of the narrative’s appeal. “But the story is fun. When you read Howard’s story, you’re going to learn a lot more about dodos than you ever thought you’d know.” (Laughing.)

Martin was able to show his friend a rough cut of the film before he died. “I was very excited that he liked it a lot,” he says. “And I said, ‘Well, we’re almost done.’ We have some more post-production stuff to do, but we’ll show it to you.’ But of course that never happened. He died six days after he saw the hard cut.”

A change was made to Waldrop’s original script: changing the lead role from “Paul” to “Paula.” Martin says gender didn’t matter, but hints at changes in the adaptations of his own books – something he’s been vocal about in the past. “Maybe I’m one of the few people in Hollywood who still believes that when you adapt a work of art, a novel, a short story, you have to do a faithful adaptation,” he says. “(It) annoys me too much because they change things and I don’t think they generally improve them.”

Is it fair to say that Martin is using his own career to propel Waldrop to a level of recognition he never quite achieved? “You could say that,” replies Martin. “I hope that these films will give him many more readers, because he has many books and he has many short stories. If these little 30-minute shorts do well enough, if they can make at least some of their money, then we’ll make more of them. Howard has at least 100 stories, but they are all wonderful and unique in their own way.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a conversation with George RR Martin without asking how he balances these projects with the long-awaited sixth and final book, The winds of winterin his A song of ice and fire series. “Unfortunately, I’m 13 years late,” he says. “Every time I say it, I’m (like), ‘How could I be 13 years late?’ I don’t know, it’s one day at a time.”

He continues: “But it is still a priority. Many people are already writing obituaries for me. (They say) ‘Oh, he’ll never finish.’ Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I’m alive right now! I seem pretty vital!” He adds that he could never retire—he’s “not a golfer.”

For now, Martin is focused on his love for Waldrop. The adaptations of his short stories are in many ways an ode to a 61-year friendship that all started with Justice League of America. “That cartoon is probably worth $10,000 today,” Martin says The brave and the bold #28. “But Howard never cared. We’d laugh about it together. I was lucky to have friends like that.”