Winter is Coming: HBO Orders "Game of Throne" to Series

It's official: HBO is in the George R.R. Martin business.

The pay cabler today announced that it had given a series pickup to Game of Thrones, a fantasy drama based on Martin's bestselling novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire." Project is executive produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who wrote the pilot episode, which was directed by Tom McCarthy.

The series--which will star Sean Bean, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Addy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, and Jamie Campbell-Bower, among many, many others too numerous to list here--is expected to launch next spring. Production gets back underway in June in Northern Ireland.

In the meantime, you can check out the first official photo from the production above.

Are you as bloody excited as I am about this news?

Game of Thrones' first season will debut in spring 2011 on HBO.