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David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are moving their reign of violence and terror from Westeros to the US. The Game of Thrones show runners have signed on to write and direct Dirty White Boys, an adaptation of the novel by Stephen Hunter. The story follows three escaped convicts — Lamar Pye, who fled prison after killing a fellow inmate, his mentally disabled cousin, Odell, and an artist-turned-felon, Richard — as they travel across the Southern states in an attempt to escape from the state troopers. They hide out with a convict groupie, who killed her parents as a teenager, and form a twisted family as they embark on a journey filled with mishaps and misfortune.
The pair currently has no timeline for getting Dirty White Boys onto the big screen, as they’re busy focusing on the “52-week” job that is Game of Thrones. While some fans might be upset about any project that takes Weiss and Benioff’s attention away from the show, they should have nothing to worry about, seeing as Dirty White Boys is essentially Game of Thrones, if the show took place in the Southern US. In fact, the two projects are so similar that it’s hard not to picture characters from the Seven Kingdoms when reading the film’s summary…
Lamar Pye is Jaquen H’gar!
Jaquen might not be the most prominent character in the series, but he did give us the show’s unofficial motto: Valar Morghulis, or All Men Must Die. Like Lamar, he’s a career criminal with a reputation for violence and leads a gang of dangerous, hardened baddies. He also escaped from captivity (with the help of Arya Stark) in order to avoid a life-threatening situation, he’s on the run from the authorities, and he’s willing to kill all of the people who stand in his way on his journey to freedom. While Lamar is dedicated to protecting Odell, Jaquen is indebted to Arya, and kills the people she asks him to. It’s like Hunter subtracted Jacquen’s powers, gave him a new name, and decided to write a novel about him.
Odell is Hodor!
In Dirty White Boys, Odell is Lamar’s cousin, a phsyically strong but mentally disabled man who escaped an abusive family with Lamar’s help. Lamar now takes care of and protects Odell, and they are unfailingly loyal to each other. In Game of Thrones, Hodor is the Stark family’s stable hand, a physically strong but mentally disabled man who helped Bran and Rickon escape when Winterfell was burned. He carries Bran around on his back and protects him, and they are unfailingly loyal to each other. Basically, the only difference between these two is the size of their vocabularies.
Richard Peed is Gendry!
These two have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Richard is a reserved, talented artist who is capable of great violence, but mostly tags along on Lamar’s adventure in order to keep his protection. Gendry is a quiet, talented blacksmith who is forced to travel with Arya after he is kicked out of his apprenticeship in King’s Landing and he is no longer protected by the king. Although he’s more interested in crafting swords than fighting with them, Gendry doesn’t shy away from violence if he needs to protect his friends, and just like Richard ends up in a gang of misfits, so does Gendry, tagging along with Arya and Lommy Greenhands before joining the Brotherhood Without Banners.
Ruta Beth Tull is Melisandre!
If Ruta Beth has a love of the color red, these two are a match made in heaven. Ruta’s a “convict groupie,” who writes letters to Richard describing what she believes to be their cosmic connection and attempting to bond over the fact that she murdered her parents. If there’s any character in Game of Thrones who believes in having a cosmic or spiritual connection with someone, it’s the Red Priestess herself, Melisandre. She believes that only she understands Stannis and his power, and that only she can help him win the Iron Throne, and she proves her loyalty by giving birth to a Shadow Demon that kills Renly. Their girls’ nights would be terrifyingly entertaining.
Bud Pewtie is Robb Stark!
An honorable but flawed man, who is courageous and determined to do what is right? He can only be a Stark. In this case, Bud Pewtie, the state trooper who is on the hunt for Lamar and his buddies, is the Dirty White Boys version of Robb Stark, the former King in the North. Both men are good at heart, and strive for justice. Both men are confused about the paths they’ve chosen in life. And both men have terrible taste in women: for Robb it was Talisa/Jeyne Westerling, who he impulsively marries despite already being betrothed to a Frey girl, and for Bed it’s Holly, the wife of his partner Ted. Let’s hope Bud isn’t going to a wedding any time soon.
