Game of Thrones has turned its stars into household names, with many going on to land other huge roles in TV and film. Emilia Clarke, Kit Harrington, Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner were all. Game of Thrones cost an astronomical amount of money to make during its eight-season run on HBO. Based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the epic fantasy series was developed by David Benioff and D.B. After a failed Game of Thrones pilot in 2009, HBO ordered an extensive re-shoot before the series officially launched. Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of fantasy novels by George R. Martin, the first of which is A Game of Thrones. The show was shot in the United Kingdom, Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, and Spain. Money is coming: According to a Thursday report from The Hollywood Reporter, the five main stars of Game Of Thrones will all earn $1.1million each per episode over the next two seasons.

It was recently reported that the producer’s of HBO’s hit “Game of Thrones” spent a massive $200,000 to keep a nude scene of Cersei, played by Lena Headey, in the upcoming season a secret. I don’t want to reveal too much about the scene but addition security was hired and local shop owners were paid to close for the duration of the filming. Reading this piece news got me thinking – How does HBO pay for all of this? It is estimated that each episode costs an average 6 million dollar making it the third most expensive production. It can be argued that Game of Thrones is one of if not the most highly rated cable show which creates plenty of buzz all around the world but does this translate to money?

The answer is a big fat (maybe a little hairy) YES and it does this largely through the amount of subscription it attracts. With the increasing buzz, more people are likely to subscript to the network. With the average price of subscribing to HBO being around $16 a month and the number of subscribers totaling around 28 million, through rough maths it can be easily worked out that the $60 million per season is no biggie for HBO. However what really needs to be looked at is the number of subscribers that the show has brought on to the network. Game of Thrones would require at least 2 million subscribers to subscribe for 2 months (the duration of the show) to recoup the costs. This number would further decrease by a sixth as a vast majority of the subscribers hold on to the channel for atleast 12 months due to contractual requirements. So only around 340,000 subscribers are needed. Although there are no fixed figures out on the web that indicate the exact rise in subscription due to ‘Game of Thrones’, it is safe to say through the rapid fame of the show from season 1 where there was an average 2.5 million people viewing each episode live to 7.5 million in season 4, the subscriber that have subscribed to HBO due to Game of Thrones have far exceeded this figure. On top of this, one needs to consider the amount brought from advertising. Although HBO don’t broadcast ads during the show, it can be assumed that with the increasing popularity of the channel, the price of placing an ad would have definitely have increased. Northern Ireland Screen, a government body that promotes film production in the area, has paid an estimated amount of $15.3 million over the last four season. Obviously, they do not do this out of good will. In exchange, the production brings an estimated $108 million to the area. Other things that need to considered are the sales of DVDs (the first season had over 350,000 box sales within 7 days), merchandise and the official game.

By/May 16, 2019 9:25 am EDT/Updated: April 12, 2021 10:42 am EDT

In Westeros, it is said that a Lannister always pays his debts; however, with the unbelievably lofty per-episode price tags that some of the Game of Thrones actors come with, it's hard to imagine them ever going into debt in the first place. HBO's award-winning mega-hit, inspired by George R.R. Martin's fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire, has grown exponentially in its eight years of captivating television, becoming one of the largest pop-culture trends in modern history. The third episode of its final season brought in 17.8 million viewers, lending more evidence to the argument that Thrones has become one of the most-watched shows on television.

How Do Game Of Thrones Earn Money

Unsurprisingly, as the show elevated to new heights of fame and popularity, so too did the salaries of its distinguished cast members. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO utilizes a tiered system to determine the pay bracket each actor falls into. The major players, including Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, and Kit Harington, are obviously in Tier A, whereas the more minor parts, such as those of Sophie Turner and Aidan Gillen, fall into Tier B. As the series entered its final season, some actors were reportedly earning over $500,000 per episode. Here are some rumored salaries of the stars of Game of Thrones.

The Mother of Dragons hits the motherlode

All hail the dragon queen! Emilia Clarke, who played the platinum-haired Daenerys Targaryen from the start of the series, made sure she wasn't going to be paid less than her male Thrones co-stars. According to Vanity Fair, Clarke, a proud advocate of the Time's Up movement, ensured that she and Thrones' four other main characters all got paid the same amount — a cool $300,000 per episode in 2014 — regardless of their genders.

Since 2014, Game of Thrones has only grown in popularity, and so too have its stars' paychecks. Clarke, who along with Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau make up the top tier of the show's pay brackets, is one of the highest-paid actors on TV. In 2017, Variety reported that Clarke was paid an estimated $500,000 per episode for the final two seasons of Thrones, meaning that she took home $6.5 million for those seasons alone. Although Clarke has dipped her toes in other massive franchises, including Star Wars and Terminator, Thrones has been the main contributor to her net worth, currently estimated at around $13 million.

A salary fit for a king (in the North)

Kit Harington, who showed up to his first Game of Thrones audition for Jon Snow sporting a black eye from an altercation at a McDonald's the night before, has come a long way since 2011. The London-born actor, who started off starring in theater productions at the New London Theater, is now one of the highest-paid actors in a drama series, reportedly taking home around $500,000 per Thrones episode. That's not a bad nest egg to acquire from your first-ever TV gig.

Given that he was relatively unknown when he was cast in 2011, HBO probably wasn't shelling out the big bucks for the Bastard of Winterfell. According to Cosmopolitan, Harington's contract changed in 2014, bumping him up to $300,000 per episode, equating to $5,100,000 total for seasons 5 and 6. Factoring in his new $500,000 per-episode fee for the final two seasons, one can estimate that Harington will walk away from his time in Westeros having earned over $11.6 million.

She gets that Lannister money

Money blast donkey slot games. As part of the aforementioned 'Tier A' of actors, Lena Headey, whose riveting performance as Cersei Lannister could teach a college-level course on 'How to be an Effective Villain 101,' was reportedly paid roughly half of a million dollars per episode for the final two seasons. That's definitely not a bad payday when you consider that the majority of her scenes in those episodes consist of her broodily gazing out of a balcony while she sips wine and plots more sadistic plans. In fact, given Headey's limited screentime in the final season, she was paid roughly $3.6 million in total for three episodes, which isn't bad at all when you consider that she only worked 15 days on the show.

Interestingly enough, Headey apparently wasn't always living the lavish life with her Game of Thrones money. In 2013, TMZ reported that Headey claimed to have less than $5 in her bank account. It would appear as though Headey, who had previously starred alongside Gerard Butler in 2006's adrenaline-pulsing action flick 300, has had a real change of fortune financially speaking thanks to her time in King's Landing.

Small stature, big wallet

In an interview with The Guardian, Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, recalled his humble beginnings, renting an apartment on the Lower East Side with some les