What’s the deal with the Game of Thrones prequel, House of Dragon?
Little to nothing is known about the first spin-off to spawn from the fantasy epic after the Naomi Watts led-prequel, thought to be titled The Long Night, was sensationally axed after the pilot.
Could it really have been worse than the notoriously dreadful Game of Thrones pilot?
Thankfully, despite a pandemic, HBO boss Casey Bloys has confirmed House of Dragon is still on track for a 2022 release.
According to Deadline, who spoke to the station’s head-honcho at last night’s Emmy Award where HBO swept up again with 31 gongs, House of Dragon won’t be delayed and casting is now officially underway.
House of Dragon will take a deep-dive into the origins of the Targaryen Dynasty, set 300 years before Game of Thrones, adapted from author George R.R. Martin’s book, Fire and Blood.
According to Knife Edge Media, a casting call for the three leads was released earlier this year.
The call featured descriptions of three of the most famous figures in the Targaryen dynasty – siblings Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys Targaryen.
Announcing House of Dragon back in 2019 and breaking news of the previous prequel’s axe, Bloys said: ‘In development, in pilots, sometimes things come together, sometimes they don’t. One of the things I think [writer] Jane [Goldman] took on beautifully, which was a challenge, there was a lot more world creation because she set hers 8,000 years before the (mothership) show, so it required a lot more.
‘That is a big swing.
(Picture: Billy Bennight/ZUMA Wire/REX)
‘One of the things about House of Dragons, there is a text, there is a book so that made it a little bit more of a road map for a series order.’
‘I think Jane did a beautiful job, it was a big challenge but there was nothing that I would point to and say, oh, that one element did not work, just overall it did not quite gel,’
‘That’s one of the reasons when we started out to think about “Is there a life after Game of Thrones in terms of Game of Thrones?”
‘We purposefully developed multiple projects. We would have been very lucky to do one pilot, have that pilot go and be a success but in development, as you know, it takes a lot of tries to get it right. This is no different.’
House of Dragons is expected to arrive in 2022. Game of Thrones is available to stream on NOW TV.
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