HBO boss Richard Plepler has admitted that the network "screwed up" with Confederate.
Back in July, it was announced that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss would work on the Civil War drama, leading to a social media backlash with critics branding the series about slavery inappropriate and insensitive.
HBO defended the show shortly after the backlash, but now Plepler has accepted that mistakes were made. "We screwed up in an important way," he said at the Vanity Fair summit.
"[Confederate shows] what we call the thin line, the thin veneer of civilisation – that's what we meant to explore. Where we screwed up was we tried to explain a complicated subject in a press release in three paragraphs," he continued.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots and we bear some of the responsibility for that."
Confederate is set to take place in the lead-up to a third American Civil War in an alternative future where the South has successfully seceded from the North and slavery still exists.
The show's producers and writers had argued that criticism of the series had come too early.
"I wish their concern had been reserved to the night of the premiere, on HBO, on a Sunday night, when they watched and then they made a decision after they watched an hour of television as to whether or not we succeeded in what we set out to do," said writer Nichelle Tramble Spellman.
Confederate is set to air after Game of Thrones' eighth and final season, which will air in either 2018 or 2019.
