The project, tentatively titled Bloodmoon, was to be shepherded by Jane Goldman (writer of Stardust and Kick-Ass) and it would cover the ancient era of Westeros known as The Age of Heroes. The series would star Naomi Watts in the lead role and delve further into the white walkers and they’re arrival in an event known as The Long Night. Bloodmoon went so far as to shoot a pilot (with a reported budget in the $30-35 million range) but was unceremoniously canceled by HBO in the fall of 2019.
So what happened with Bloodmoon? Why did HBO decide that it was the ideal first Game of Thrones spinoff before abruptly deciding that it wasn’t? Well thanks to a sprawling feature about House of the Dragon’s origins in The Hollywood Reporter, we now have a better idea. THR’s piece is well worth reading and is one of two they will be publishing. While the second installment promises to delve deeper into House of the Dragon’s cast, this first dispatch catalogs its circuitous route to our TV screens. In telling the story of House of the Dragon’s arrival, however, THR has much to reveal about Bloodmoon: The Show That Never Was.
According to the execs and creatives interviewed in the feature, HBO’s decision to proceed with a Long Night TV show first stemmed from a sincere desire to do something different with the Game of Thrones IP. Though it now seems obvious that viewers would want more of the same elements that made Game of Thrones great from a spinoff, one cannot begrudge HBO from wanting to switch things up a bit in the immediate aftermath of that poorly received finale.
“The desire at HBO was to not just offer up a sequel that’s about the war for the throne,” House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal told THR. “They wanted to do something so totally different that it would blow everybody’s minds. I think that’s why they went with The Long Night instead.”
While wanting to blow people’s minds is a worthwhile storytelling goal, it sounds like Bloodmoon had some difficulties in doing so due to a lack of narrative runway from George R.R. Martin. Simply put: there is next to nothing in Martin’s novels about The Long Night. It’s mentioned only in passing and even then it’s understood to be the stuff of unreliable legend. This means Goldman had a lot of latitude in crafting the show’s plot, themes, and twists.
On one hand, you could see how that sounds appealing. HBO’s vice president of drama Francesca Orsi certainly makes it seem so, telling THR: “Tonally it felt very adult, sophisticated and intelligent, and there was a thematic conversation at the center of it about disenfranchisement in the face of colonialism and religious extremism.”
