HBO digitally removes coffee cup from "Game of Thrones" episode
After fans flooded the internet with jokes, the cup mistakenly left in a "Game of Thrones" scene has been digitally removed from the episode, an HBO spokesman confirmed to CBS News Tuesday. The move comes less than two days after the hit show displayed a takeout coffee cup in the fictional Westeros.
HBO edited out the modern coffee cup seen in the latest episode from HBO Now and HBO GO, and instead, the scene now shows Daenerys Targaryen holding a single dark container near an empty stretch of table where the cup formerly sat.
Before HBO fixed it, the cup could be seen at about the 17:40 mark in the fourth episode of season 8, titled "The Last of the Starks," as characters gathered for a feast at Winterfell following their costly battle.
HBO offered a tongue-in-cheek statement Monday about the snafu, saying: "The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea."
The show's art director, Hauke Richter, told TMZ that the cup wasn't from Starbucks, as many people thought, but from a local coffee shop in Northern Ireland, where many of the scenes were shot. Richter added he was "certain" that it was an accident: "We are usually so diligent that this does not happen. The shoot was very hard and demanding and it is likely that after a very tiring ep 3 shoot, this was simply overlooked by an exhausted crew."
For those of you who didn’t think the Starbucks cup gaffe was real, I went back to watch it and—#GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/xNz2iBHySH
— Clarkisha Kent: Benioff and Weiss Hate Account (@IWriteAllDay_) May 6, 2019
Viewers still took to Twitter to tweet about the mistake, many expressing shock that the gaffe would make it onscreen considering the current season cost millions to produce and took two years to hit HBO.
"You're telling me they had TWO YEARS to put together a decent show and they couldn't even spot the goddamn Starbucks cup in Winterfell??!?!" one user wrote.
"Imagine HBO spending millions on every single episode and being done over by a single coffee cup. Guess Dany didn't get the memo about reusable chalices #GameofThrones," another tweeted.
Others had some fun with the supposed Starbucks connection. "Guys it's not Starbucks, it's Winterfell's own coffee chain "Dire cup" #GameofThrones," one Twitter user said.