Another Game of Thrones prequel is coming. Maybe. Deadline reports that HBO is close to ordering a pilot for a show about House Targaryen, based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. The project will be co-executive produced by George R.R. Martin and Colony co-creator/exec producer Ryan Condal. Per Deadline, the story is based on a treatment dreamed up by Game of Thrones scribe Bryan Cogman, back when HBO was first exploring what kind of show would follow up its monster hit. The pitch was shelved and Cogman moved on to other things, but it looks like the idea is coming back in revised form.
Fire & Blood is a “fake history” book that chronicles the trials of the Targaryen family starting hundreds of years before the events of the main show, when Aegon Targaryen conquered Westeros with his sisters, and ending shortly after the Dance of Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that tore the realm apart. There’s a second volume on the way.
Deadline says that the new prequel is set “300 years before the events in Game of Thrones,” which probably means Aegon’s Invasion is in the cards. Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile, “hears the series would lead up to and eventually chronicle…the legendary Dance of the Dragons.” So this show would cover a lot of time. Would it only mention Aegon’s Invasion and passing and focus mainly on the Dance? Would it be an anthology show, with each season jumping forward in time to examine a new generation of characters? Lots of questions remain.
If HBO greenlights this idea, the SFX budget will be staggering. Aegon the Conqueror’s dragon, Balerion the Black Dread, was much larger than Daenerys’ Drogon. And just imagine how much it would cost to animate a civil war with multiple dragons fighting over the skies of Westeros.
If this show goes to pilot, it will be second Game of Thrones prequel HBO is making. The first, tentatively titled Blood Moon (or The Long Night, depending on who you ask), is set thousands of years earlier, long before the Targaryens came to Westeros. This show, if the pilot is picked up, will chronicle the first time the White Walkers showed up to terrify the people of what would later become the Seven Kingdoms. Starring Naomi Watts and Miranda Richardson, among many others, the pilot for that show has already been shot.
Is HBO hoping to make both of these shows? Maybe they could have one run in the fall and one in the spring of every year, so we have something Game of Thrones-themed year round. Or maybe they’ll trade off each year, with Blood Moon having a new season one year and Fire & Blood the next. Or maybe HBO doesn’t like what it’s seen of the Blood Moon pilot and is exploring other options. Again, we mostly have unanswered questions at this point.
Martin seems to have known an announcement like this was coming. Back in May, after the first prequel had been announced, Martin took to his Not a Blog and cautioned fans that there was more to come. “We have had five different GAME OF THRONES successor shows in development (I mislike the term “spinoffs”) at HBO, and three of them are still moving forward nicely. The one I am not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT will be shooting later this year, and two other shows remain in the script stage, but are edging closer. What are they about? I cannot say.”
But maybe some of you should pick up a copy of FIRE & BLOOD and come up with your own theories.
Oh, George, you knew exactly what you were doing.
And what’s the third prequel idea still potentially floating around out there? There’s still plenty of year left to find out.
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