HBO has more ‘Game of Thrones’ prequels in the works, including one from ‘Rome’ creator Bruno Heller and another about the legendary founder of Dorne.
HBO is developing three more Game of Thrones prequel projects.
The network has a trio of additional ideas in the works based on author George R.R. Martin’s fantasy world, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
One of the projects, working title 9 Voyages, is from Rome creator Bruno Heller and follows Lord Corlys Velaryon, aka The Sea Snake, the Lord of the Tides and head of House Velaryon. The character also appears in the upcoming greenlit GoT prequel House of the Dragon, where he’s played by actor Steve Toussaint. So this effort represents a potential spinoff of a character from a series that hasn’t yet been shot (let alone aired).
A second project, working title 10,000 Ships, revolves around the warrior queen Princess Nymeria, a revered ancestor of House Martell who founded of the kingdom of Dorne (she became so legendary in the realm that two characters bore her name in the original series — Sand Snake Nymeria Sand and Arya’s direwolf). Her story is set roughly 1,000 years before the events in Game of Thrones, making it much older on the Westeros timeline than any of the other previously announced projects in the works (HBO shot a prequel pilot in 2019 set even further back during the Age of Heroes, but it never made it to series). Also, Game of Thrones added a storyline involving Dorne midway through the series that fans felt struggled to feel like an organic part of the show. If greenlit, the Nymeria project could give an entirely new and redemptive take on Sunspear.
The third project is set in the notorious King’s Landing slum of Flea Bottom – the maze of tight streets in the capitol city where characters like Davos Seaworth and Gendry Baratheon were born.
The projects are in addition to the upcoming greenlit series House of the Dragon, which begins filming in the U.K. in April and stars Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Paddy Considine and Matt Smith. Dragon follows the story of House Targaryen 300 years before the events in GoT and builds to an epic civil war that tore Westeros apart. The series is from co-showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal and is expected to premiere in 2022.
Another HBO project previously reported in development is based on Martin’s popular Dunk and Egg novellas, which followed the adventures of the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg, who would later become King Aegon V Targaryen. In addition, there’s an animated Thrones project being considered about a topic that’s not yet been revealed. The surge of projects are part of HBO’s post-GoT surge to try and replace the incredibly popular show, particularly now that it’s fully immersed in the streaming wars with HBO Max.
“The way we try to approach it is not by [saying], ‘We need five shows within three years,’ but ‘What are the stories worth telling?'” HBO’s chief content officer Casey Bloys told THR in January. “We’ve been developing multiple takes on different worlds. The one I want to do is the one that I think is best creatively. I prefer to make it about the stories and the showrunners and their vision as opposed to hitting some arbitrary target for the right number of shows.”
HBO declined to comment. Deadline first reported the news of the new spinoffs.
