Funny, I don't recall him as a POV character. Though it doesn't mean he wasn't one. I haven't read it since its initial release. Hopefully I'll get a chance to re-read it next

George had originally intended to write in a 5-year gap after the events of book 3. if you notice at the end of SoS that most of the major characters are at a stopping point in their journey or are starting a new arc. George couldn't make the 5-year gap work so effectively had to trash what he was writing and start…

You should pick up the fifth again. Most definitely Book 4 and the fist half of book five should really be read concurrently anyway

She couldn't talk with her mouth full

Well, here's the blurb from the original Miniseries:

There was another NBC miniseries dating back to 85 or 86. It was also called A.D., and it also started with the ascension of Jesus and then went into the crazy times in Rome thereafter.

It's not like Bradley Whitford is doing anything at the moment

I guess all that sweet Battle: Los Angeles money had run out

I would watch the shit out of a Scorsese Punisher

It's like Tess of the D'Urbervilles all over again

Well, can we get Season 4 of The Borgias now?

He's the fat one, right?

Yeah. Finding a way to ease him out of the series that's also respectful to the actor and his family is going to be a tough needle to thread. Like someone said above if it was just Walker holding out for more money, sure, just blow him up. But given that he died under similar circumstances that's not an option.

Considering that his wife and daughter were kidnapped in the last one, it's thoroughly plausible that there was a conversation scripted about Walker's character sitting this one out. If it was actually filmed, it could be tweaked so that O'Connor and his family go someplace safe.

I know that they cobbled together the character's final scene from back-lit shots of a body double mixed with outtakes from another scene.

They also can't ignore the giant hole in the middle of their schedule next summer either. I took a look at other major franchises that track back to Universal. Bourne 5 and Jurassic World are both slated for 2015. The Mummy reboot is 2016. NONE of these are going to be ready by next summer.

It's also a budgeting issue for the whole studio. It's possible that the hundreds of millions of dollars this would have likely brought in next July now isn't going to be coming in. That'll also need to be made up

Please point out the scene where they superimposed Reed's face on another actor and got dialogue out of it.

Oh I agree, but try to convince a bunch of studio guys that their main summer tentpole movie isn't happening and tell me what they say

Exactly. Right now the biggest motivator behind just fully starting production over is trying to maintain the July '14 release date that it's penciled in for.