When Game of Thrones showrunners and noted white men David Benioff and D.B. Weiss announced their next project—a drama series that imagines a modern-day America where slavery is legal—there was some immediate, and understandable, backlash.

Quickly, Benioff stepped in to say it was too soon to condemn the show.

"So everything is brand new and nothing's been written," Benioff said of the show. "I guess that's what was a little bit surprising about some of the outrage. It's just a little premature. You know, we might fuck it up. But we haven't yet."

Which is fair, but still concerning that the guys who make a show about sex and dragons could tackle such a sensitive subject.

Now, HBO admits that it botched the announcement of the new show by not giving enough context for the idea. "File this under hindsight is 20/20," HBO president Casey Bloys admitted at TCA on Wednesday:

If I could do it over again, HBO's mistake—not the producers'—was the idea that we would be able to announce an idea that is so sensitive that requires such care and thought on the part of the producers in a press release was misguided on our part. [We] had the benefit of sitting with these four producers, we heard why they wanted to do the show, what they were excited about, and why it was important to them, so we had that context, but I completely understand that somebody reading the press release would not have that at all. If I had to do it over again, I would've rolled it out with the producers on the record so people understood where they were coming from.

Confederate takes place in an alternate timeline leading up to the third American Civil War where southern states have seceded from the Union, creating a nation where slavery remains legal.

"My hope is that people will judge the actual material as opposed to what it could be, should be, or might be, and they—and we—will rise or fall based on the quality of that material," Bloys said. "These four writers are at the top of their game; they can do whatever they want. This is what they're passionate about, so I'm going to bet on that."

Still, though, this doesn't sound like the right time with the right people to be making a show like this. Couldn't Benioff and Weiss just make Game of Thrones but with robots in the wild west or something?

From: Esquire US