It’s coming.
At the end of Game of Thrones, fans of the show will be sadder than The Hound after he runs out of ale and chicken. The Long Night is coming for Jon Snow and after Season 8 ends, there are going to be plenty of long nights for fans of the show as they console themselves with the boxset.
Things will be ok though…we think.
With Amazon’s adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time to come, it’s clear that fantasy drama is very much the genre that the studios are trying to crack but there’s nothing quite like Game of Thrones.
That’s why we’re extremely optimistic that HBO will nail the new prequel series that they’ve been developing for quite some time.
We already know that Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kingsmen) is the showrunner on the prequel series and that the plot takes place “thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”
Naomi Watts has already been cast as “a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret” and a raft of other additions to the cast have been made in recent weeks too.
Most importantly, the pilot has also landed a director in S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones, Bates Motel and Dexter).
EW have now confirmed that the show will begin production in early summer, as stated by HBO programming president Casey Bloys.
In an older interview with the same publication, George R.R. Martin said that the prequel is going to be very different to what we’ve seen in Game of Thrones.
“Westeros is a very different place. There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens — Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and hopefully that will be part of the fun of the series,” he said.
At present, the location for this Game of Thrones prequel hasn’t been announced yet but we’re willing to swear on the gods – both old and new – that Northern Ireland will feature throughout.
Regarding the war for the Iron Throne and the survival of the Seven Kingdoms from the Night King, 14 April can’t come quickly enough.
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