All men must die, according to the famous "Game of Thrones" catch phrase, which means a lot of death scenes involved. And the series is famous for excelling at their memorable and macabre murders that need a lot of special effects, thus expensive.
Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that HBO is no stranger to massive budgets -- with the exceeding budget of $8 million for each scene in season two's "The Battle of Blackwater," breaking the budget for an entire episode in "Game of Thrones" early episodes. From face-smashing, poison, and old-fashioned beheading, most viewers would assume that they are the most gruesome and expensive ones, but the death scene that actually cost the most money to film was the least anticipated one.
According to Refinery29, during an appearance at the 2017 SXSW Festival in Texas, the show runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff spoke about the most expensive death scene and what musicians will be the season's cameo before finally 'slayed.' Due to the many gruesome death scenes in "Game of Thrones," it was rather difficult to decide which one was the most expensive. Not to mention all of the blood bags in the infamous Red Wedding massacre. ShortList even added that many candidates for the most expensive death scene, like when Khal Drogo 'crowning' Viserys by drowning him in molten gold, Cersei and the wildfire explosion, or something to do with the dragons.
Surprisingly, sometimes the most simple death scenes were the hardest to pull off. In fact, the most expensive death was in the season 5 finale when Arya Stark killed Meryn Trant, the pedophile member of the King's Guard. The scene involved the British actress, Maisie Williams, that brutally stabbing Trant's eyes and throat with a small knife. There were no explosions, not many gushing blood, no intense special effects, so why was the scene so expensive? It was because they need a lot of prosthesis and choreography in perfecting the scene.
It is unclear if the the scene will be the headlight in the next season, but with only six episodes planned, there will be more expensive death scenes packed into each episode when the show returns on July 16.
