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Excluding the unanimously panned last season, for the most part, Game of Thrones deservingly cemented itself among some of the greatest stories to be ever told on the small screen. Moreover, during its heyday on TV, the show also contributed to the growing meme landscape of that time, especially in one of the most revered episodes of the show.

Game of Thrones | Credit: HBO

Tied with Rains of Castamere and The Winds of Winter as the highest-rated episodes in the show on IMDb, the 9.9-rated Battle of the Bastards witnessed Kit Harington standing his ground against an incoming cavalry charge. Not only did this prove to be one of the iconic moments in the entire show, but this also took the internet by storm.

Memes greatly benefited from Kit Harington, aka Jon Snow’s bravery Battle of the Bastards | Credit: HBO

Battle of the Bastards is often considered the peak...

Updated with PETA statement: A horse involved in the production of The Lord Of the Rings: The Rings Of Power died on the set of the Prime Video series in the U.K. last week.

“We are deeply saddened to confirm that a production horse died on 21st March,” Amazon Studios spokesperson said. “The incident took place in the morning whilst the horse was being exercised prior to rehearsals. The trainer was not in costume and filming had yet to commence. Both a veterinarian and a representative of the American Humane Association were present at the time. The independent necropsy has confirmed that the horse died of cardiac failure.”

According to sources, more than 30 horses were being used on the show that day, supplied by The Devil’s Horsemen, which has worked for such TV series and movies as Wonder Woman, Justice League, Transformers: The Last Knight, Game Of Thrones and The Crown,...

Of all the life-changing cinema that premiered in the 1980s, Jonathan Kasdan singles out “Willow” as the first film to “mark time” in his existence. “It just had this psychological significance to me in my development,” Kasdan explains to Variety. “You’d be shocked at how many people say, ‘Oh, I saw that movie, it scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.’”

The 1988 fantasy, directed by Ron Howard (then 34) and executive produced by George Lucas, is centered around a lousy sorcerer named Willow (played by a 17-year-old Warwick Davis) who is tasked with protecting a magical baby from all manner of treachery. Its collection of revolutionary visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic — including the transformation of an army of men into squealing pigs — along with powerhouse performances from Jean Marsh, Val Kilmer and Davis all delivered with a touch of charm is what helped to keep...

When Eli Goree was cast as Cassius Clay, the boxer who would become Muhammad Ali, in “One Night in Miami,” he was the most prepared actor you could find. That’s because he had begun almost two years prior, when he auditioned for the role of Ali in a different film, to be directed by Ang Lee.

“I started preparing by gaining weight, learning the accent, going through the audition process,” Goree says. The role ended up going to “some other actor out of England” — ironically, it was Goree’s future “Miami” co-star Kingsley Ben-Adair, though the film has yet to be made. But Goree felt destined to play Ali.

“I believed that someone would make another Cassius Clay film someday and I wanted to be prepared to be the one to get cast,” he says. “So I found and hired my own boxing coach, and dialect coach, and strength and conditioning trainer.

Anyone who’s watched a battle scene set in a pre-modern and/or fantasy world has seen a horse get hurt. In fact, when it comes to older films, you may have seen them get hurt for real.

But during Season 7, Episode 4 of “Game of Thrones,” things may have gone too far. To be specific, there is a moment in “The Spoils of War” when we see a Dothraki warrior literally cut off the foreleg of a horse being ridden in battle by Ser Bronn (Jerome Flynn).

Read More‘Game of Thrones’ Review: The Bloody Carnage of ‘The Spoils of War’ Delivers on Season 7’s Biggest Promises

It’s hardly the first time “Game of Thrones” fans have seen bad things happen to horses: In “The Battle of the Bastards,” Episode 9 of Season 6, you see beautiful steeds collapsing after blows, ramming into men, and even ramming into other horses. Thanks to behind-the-scenes footage,...

“The Battle of the Bastards” represents a spectacular visual effects crescendo for “Game of Thrones” Season 6, bringing to a head the heated feud between Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and his army of Wildlings, and the Boltons, led by nemesis Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon).

Director Miguel Sapochni looked to Akira Kurosawa’s classic “Ran” “as an action and visual departure point,” said production VFX supervisor Joseph Bauer. “There were various other western and historic battle movies and other references that informed army formation and tactics. The body pile concept came from both Roman and Civil War accounts. Aesthetically, the feel for Bastards was to stay with Jon Snow and keep the viewer inside the action relentlessly.”

The task fell to Australia-based VFX studio, Iloura, which raised its photoreal game with 400 audacious shots featuring 3,000-strong armies, a hybrid of real and CG people as well as animals and massive crowd simulations, plus hundreds of body parts,...

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A look behind the scenes of Game Of Thrones season 6 at what went into creating its biggest, most impressive battle yet. Spoilers…

A 25-day shoot, 500 extras, 70 horses, 4 camera crews, a budget rumoured to be in excess of $10 million. That’s what it took to make Game Of Thrones’ Battle of the Bastards.

The figures though, only tell half the story. It takes more than cash and resources to create satisfying, character-driven action on that scale. You also need expertise, experience and the following...

Trust in your director

When Battle Of The Bastards director Miguel Sapochnik emailed the Game Of Thrones producers to suggest going ‘off-book’ for three days to shoot a non-scripted episode sequence, he fully expected to be told where to go. “Dan and David like their scripts executed the way they wrote them, and with good reason” he told Entertainment Weekly.

Sapochnik’s teams had...

Now that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has set the table for Warner Bros.' massive DC Extended Universe (Dceu), fans are shifting their attention to the next adventures on the studio's slate. Suicide Squad arrives August 5, with Wonder Woman hitting theaters on June 2, 2017. Production is still under way on Wonder Woman, and star Gal Gadot seems to have revealed a new cast member through her Instagram account, Victoria's Secret model Doutzen Kroes. The actress posted a photo from a recent dinner, along with co-star Connie Nielsen and boxer Ann Wolfe, where she calls the ladies her "Amazonian sisters."

Connie Nielsen also posted an Instagram photo from the same meal, which included professional horse trainer Camilla Naprous, who worked on the production. We don't know for sure who exactly Doutzen Kroes is playing in Wonder Woman, but Gal Gadot's photo makes it clear that she is an Amazon Warrior.