Filming has finally started on the Game of Thrones prequel pilot and Westeros is going to look rather different from how we know it.
There’s a chance our beloved direwolves will return but fans should also be prepared for Westeros to be split into roughly a hundred mini kingdoms (not just the seven) according to author George RR Martin.
If a sudden, gaping hole has formed in your life since GoT aired its last episode in May, you have permission to get excited again because the prequel is coming.
The Starks and direwolves have such a special relationship in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels but the HBO adaptation often fell a little short, with viewers calling for Jon Snow’s (Kit Harington) beloved Ghost to get more screen time.
The serious lack of wolf action is down to the fact that filming with wolves is understandably difficult and the CGI budget went on the dragons, but that didn’t stop fans getting angry about it during season eight.
Yet now the author has revealed to EW that the prequel will bring the loveable creatures back in a big way.
There is no doubt the Stark family will be there too, given they’re descended from the First Men.
Martin said: ‘The Starks will definitely be there. Obviously, the White Walkers are here – or as they’re called in my books, The Others – and that will be an aspect of it.’
He added: ‘There are things like direwolves and mammoths.’
While we can’t know for sure whether the direwolves will feature much more in the prequel but we can cross our fingers since David Benioff and DB Weiss will not be directing it.
Filmmaker Jane Goldman will be spearheading the next chapter in our GoT journey and there are high hopes for it.
Yet viewers shouldn’t expect the prequel to be totally familiar.
Seeing as it will be set about 5,000 years prior to the GoT events we know.
The Lannister family will not even exist yet and their Castlery Rock home will be resided in by the Casterlys.
And say goodbye to the seven kingdoms because Martin has said there will be a hundred ‘petty kingdoms’.
The author said: ‘We talk about the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There were Seven Kingdoms at the time of Aegon’s Conquest.
‘But if you go back further then there are nine kingdoms and 12 kingdoms and eventually, you get back to where there are a hundred kingdoms – petty kingdoms – and that’s the era we’re talking about here.’
Naomi Watts, Miranda Richardson, Naromi Ackie and Denise Gough are among the cast confirmed for the series, which Martin previously referred to as The Long Night.
According to Variety, Marquis Rodriguez, John Simm, Richard McCabe, John Heffernan, and Dixie Egerickx have also been cast.
The Game of Thrones prequel series is currently in production for HBO.
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