Why George R. R. Martin Broke the Cardinal Rule of Hollywood

You might know George R.R. Martin as the mind behind the biggest book and television show in history: Game of Thrones. But what you probably aren’t aware of is that he’s also self-financed four short films based on the tales of a dear friend.

In the early 1960s, a 15-year-old Martin in Bayonne, New Jersey, was in search of a very rare DC comic. “The Brave and the Bold #28 was very important,” the literary giant tells 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 — off of a fellow teenage boy in Arlington, Texas. This boy was named Howard Waldrop, and it was the beginning of a life-long friendship. “I love the guy. I miss him still,” Martin says. “He was certainly my oldest friend in the world of science fiction and fantasy.”

Waldrop was an American science fiction author who worked primarily in short fiction. He spent most of his life in Austin, Texas, often combining elements such as alternative history, pop culture, the American South, old movies or classical mythology into his writing. His work was, in parts, 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 see huge mainstream success.

Martin and Waldrop remained friends all the way up until January this year, when on the 14th, Waldrop died from a stroke.

“We started writing letters to each other, actual letters — that was something we had in those days,” Martin says of the comic purchase. “We just hit it off long distance. 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 did not actually meet Howard in person until 1972.”

Now Martin has paid homage 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 Chickens, produced by Martin, was written by Michael Cassutt and directed by Mark Raso. The half-hour movie is adapted from Waldrop’s short of the same name (which won him a Nebula Award in 1980).

Martin and Waldrop’s relationship braved 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,” Martin says. “I wrote a lot of short stories and sold them, but eventually I started writing novels and series, because you can’t live on short stories. They didn’t pay very much.”

This isn’t to say Waldrop wasn’t talented — quite the opposite, says Martin: “He was an amazing writer. There was no one like Howard.” And it’s not as if Waldrop’s career was without acclaim. 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 Thrones, he wanted to strike a deal to turn some of Waldrop’s stories into short films, but it wasn’t easy.

“It’s hard to get anyone to finance a short film,” Martin tells THR. “Movie theaters don’t want to show short films. I own a movie theater myself, so I know that. 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.”

With Waldrop’s health deteriorating, 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], ‘God damn it, I’m gonna use my own money,’” he adds. “So we put these films into production — three of them are now finished. Two more are in post-production.”

The Ugly Chickens, starring Felicia Day (Supernatural, The Guild), has been shot alongside adaptations of Waldrop’s short stories Mary-Margaret Road Grader and Night of the Cooters. The movies are now screening on the festival circuit, with Chickens already securing a best short film nomination at the HollyShorts Film Festival (the Oscar-qualifying short film fest based in Los Angeles) and a special mention nod 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 might still exist, sets out on a cross-country expedition to unravel the mystery. “I think the environmentalism is the thing that you look at,” Martin says of the tale’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 possibly thought you wanted to know.” [Laughs.]

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

There was one change made to Waldrop’s original piece of writing: switching the lead from “Paul” to “Paula.” Martin says the gender didn’t matter, but hints at changes in the adaptations of his own books — something he has previously been vocal about. “Maybe I’m one of the few people in Hollywood who still thinks that when you adapt a work of art, a novel, a short story, you should 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 Martin is using his own career to get Waldrop a level of recognition he never quite achieved? “I suppose you could say that,” Martin responds. “I hope these films will get him a lot more readers, because he has a lot of books and he has a lot of short stories. If these little 30-minute shorts do well enough, if they can earn at least some of their money, then we’ll do more of them. Howard has 100 stories at least, but they’re all wonderful and unique in their own way.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a conversation with George R. R. Martin without asking how he’s balancing these projects with the long-awaited sixth and final book, The Winds of Winter, in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. “Unfortunately, I am 13 years late,” he says. “Every time I say that, I’m [like], ‘How could I be 13 years late?’ I don’t know, it happens a day at a time.”

He continues: “But that’s still a priority. A lot of people are already writing obituaries for me. [They’re saying] ‘Oh, he’ll never be finished.’ 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 the Justice League of America. “That comic book is probably worth $10,000 today,” Martin says of The Brave and the Bold #28. “But Howard never cared about that. We would laugh about it together. I was lucky to have friends like that.”