House of the Dragon Season 3 is promising the most ambitious naval battle in television history, and showrunner Ryan Condal has revealed just how massive the production of the Battle of the Gullet really was. In a new interview with TV Insider, Condal confirmed that the sequence took nearly two full years of preparation, the equivalent of making a major Hollywood blockbuster.
Quick read:
- Ryan Condal says it took two years to make Battle of the Gullet
- The team did not depend heavily on CGI and instead made physical props
- He says the episode itself will be equivalent to a franchise film
2 years of work
When asked how long the team spent on the Battle of the Gullet, Condal explained:
“Essentially, two years’ worth of research and development went into just figuring out how we were going to approach the sequence. I would say that probably a year of that was the actual planning, designing, and building of the infrastructure.”
The production went to extreme lengths to make the battle feel real as two massive water tanks were specially built (a wet tank and a dry tank). Full-sized ship sets were constructed on giant gimbals so they could realistically rock and move like vessels at sea, and beautiful medieval galleys were built and then “beaten the absolute hell out of” during filming.
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‘House of the Dragon’ showrunner Ryan Condal says the Battle of the Gullet in S3 is ‘arguably the craziest episode of TV ever made’ ⚔️
“To try to tell this story without doing the Gullet would be trying to film Lord of the Rings without doing the Battle of Helm’s Deep. If we… pic.twitter.com/sV0Qk5aacV
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) May 26, 2026
Condal emphasized that most of the action: the ships, the water, and the fighting, is practical, not CGI.
“The most dazzling thing about this sequence is the fact that, other than the wide shots and the dragons, everything is in camera. The action, the ships, and the water, in most cases, are all actually there.”
“No different than making a major franchise movie”
The showrunner compared the effort directly to big-budget cinema:
“This one episode was the ‘effort’ equivalent of making a (huge) major franchise movie.”
He also highlighted the months of storyboarding, pre-visualization, stunt design, and endless script revisions that came before cameras even started rolling.
Why the Battle of the Gullet matters
The Battle of the Gullet is one of the most devastating naval engagements in Fire & Blood. It involves the Velaryon fleet, multiple dragons, and the brutal clash between Team Black and Team Green. Fans have been waiting to see this moment since the war began, and it sounds like HBO has spared no expense.
Condal encouraged fans to watch the behind-the-scenes documentary “The House That Dragons Built” to fully appreciate the insane scale of what was achieved.
With the final trailer already showing glimpses of the chaos, the Battle of the Gullet is shaping up to be one of the standout sequences of the entire series; bigger, wetter, and more intense than anything seen in previous seasons.
