We also know why the other prequel wasn’t made.
“Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.”
Prepare to learn all about Aegon’s Conquest of Westeros, The Wars of King Aegon I, the ascension of Jaehaerys I to the throne, the epic civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons and more because House Targaryen will reign once again.
Well, they’ll probably reign over the TV ratings with the new Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon.
After it was confirmed that the House of the Dragon received an episode order for Season 1, Deadline have confirmed that show is being earmarked for release in 2022.
“My guess is sometime in 2022,” said HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys when asked about a premiere date during a recent interview.
The project is being written by George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal. It’s based on Martin’s Fire & Blood book, House of the Dragon, which is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
Battle of the Bastards director Miguel Sapochnik and Condal are working on the show as showrunners and they also serve as executive producers along with GoT co-executive producers Martin and Vince Gerardis.
During a previous interview with JOE, George R.R Martin disclosed a few details about some of the projects that he’s working on, including House of the Dragon.
“I’ve a lot of my stuff in various stages of development. Sandkings, The Ice Dragon, Wild Cards and, of course, we’re developing a number of Game of Thrones prequels that are drawn in large part from Fire and Blood, the book of Targaryen history that I had out in November,” he said.
The events in Fire and Blood are set centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones and revolve around House Targaryen — the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria as they take up residence on Dragonstone.
The novel begins with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and the person that subjugated the Seven Kingdoms.
The novel then recounts the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.
Over the course of the novel, the Dance of the Dragons, the Doom of Valyria and the origin of Daenerys’s three dragon eggs are all discussed.
Of course, this isn’t the only Game of Thrones prequel that was being pursued by HBO. A pilot was filmed for Jane Goldman’s series, set in the Age of Heroes, but it was never given a full season order.
Bloys elaborated on why Goldman’s series never got the green light.
“In development, in pilots, sometimes things come together, sometimes they don’t,” he said.
“One of the things I think Jane took on beautifully, which was a challenge, there was a lot more world creation because she set hers 8,000 years before the (mothership) show, so it required a lot more. That is a big swing. One of the things about House of Dragons, there is a text, there is a book, so that made it a little bit more of a road map for a series order.”
“I think Jane did a beautiful job, it was a big challenge but there was nothing that I would point to and say, oh, that one element did not work, just overall it did not quite gel,” Bloys added.
“That’s one of the reasons when we started out to think about ‘Is there a life after Game of Thrones in terms of Game of Thrones?’, we purposefully developed multiple projects. We would have been very lucky to do one pilot, have that pilot go and be a success but in development as you know, it takes a lot of tries to get it right. This is no different.
All in all, we’re just happy to be heading back to Westeros… or Valyria… or Pentos… or Essos… or wherever this new show takes us.
Bring it on.
Just don’t botch the ending.
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