Expect at least a two year wait before the next “Game of Thrones” spinoff arrives with “House of the Dragon” not likely to debut until 2022…
If you’re looking forward to the upcoming “Game of Thrones” spinoff titled “House of the Dragon,” you might be waiting for a little while.
The upcoming series from “Game of Thrones” creator George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal (Colony) is just now starting to break ground on the story for the first season, which means production won’t likely start on the show until sometime next year.
Because “Game of Thrones” was such a complex series with so many visual effects, shooting would often finish months before the show would actually air on HBO and it appears the same schedule will be in place for “House of the Dragon.”
“They are in the room breaking story right now,” HBO programming chief Casey Bloys said recently. “My guess is we’ll see it on the air in ’22.”
The new series will be based on Martin’s book “Blood and Fire,” which documented the rise of House Targaryen from the arrival of Aegon I Targaryen to Westeros when he decided to conquer the Seven Kingdoms all the way to the aftermath following the Targaryen civil war known as “The Dance of Dragons.”
It’s unknown if each season will cover a new aspect in the history of House Targaryen or if it will just be a chronological story spanning all those years between Aegon’s conquest and the massive and bloody Targaryen civil war.
With story just now breaking on the series, casting probably won’t begin until at least later this year if not early 2021 as production gets closer to a real start date. Condal and Martin will act as co-showrunners on the series.
While “House of the Dragon” received a full series order at HBO, the original “Game of Thrones” spinoff that was rumored to be called “The Long Night” was ultimately cancelled without going past the pilot phase. Bloys explained that the difficulty in creating that show from scratch was a much different animal than the road map that was there to follow with “House of the Dragon” thanks to Martin’s fully realized novel that tells Targaryen history from start to finish.
“That [prequel] was 8,000 years before the current show, so it required a lot more invention,” Bloys said. “One of the benefits of ‘House of the Dragon’ is there was a text from George and there was a little bit more of a roadmap. [Jane Goldman’s prequel] did have more challenges in terms of establishing a world, but I think she handled that beautifully… there wasn’t one glaring thing.”
Obviously whatever the issues were, HBO didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with that series but the network was all-in with “House of the Dragon.” Several more “Game of Thrones” spinoffs were in development from HBO so there’s always a chance that another show will get picked up in the future but for now it appears the history of House Targaryen will be the focal point with the upcoming series.
