super bowl LIII
This was not the Game of Thrones footage we were expecting
It's Super Bowl Sunday, and you know what that means: Time for another round of New Game of Thrones Footage Watch. And, well, let's just say what we got in the game's first half was not exactly what anyone had expected.
The ad opens on what looks to be another medieval-themed Bud Light commercial in the land of Dilly Dilly, with the set-up being a joust between the beer's Bud Knight mascot and an assailant who looks suspiciously like The Mountain. And just when you're waiting for the punchline ... the Bud Knight is killed, the Game of Thrones music fires up, and a dragon passes overhead.
Then, uhhh:
"[Dilly Dilly] is a really sanitized version of the Game of Thrones world," explained Andrew Fergusson, the group creative director at HBO's ad agency, to The Wall Street Journal. "We just had to add the grit." Bud Light had reportedly hesitated over the gory end to the Bud Knight, but HBO insisted that "the Bud Knight had to die."
To say that crossover was unexpected is, well, an understatement. Watch the extended version of the bold and bizarre ad spot below. Jeva Lange