Westeros

It sounds like Thursday is likely to see a new trailer or teaser for the forthcoming second season of House of the Dragon, according to the latest post from the official sites. Two tweets promise that everyone must choose between “Team Green” and “Team Black”, and each tweet features dramatic images of some of the leading members of each party… plus our first look, I believe, at King Aegon II’s golden dragon (on green rather than the book canon black) that also answers one of the enduring heraldic questions of the show.

More on that below, but here’s the tweets:

ALL MUST CHOOSE. This promotional banner features the Greens and the Blacks, represented by Aegon, Ser Criston Cole, Aemond, and Alicent on the one side, and Rhaenyra, Daemon, Rhaenys, as well as Corlys Velaryon on the other.

Interesting news broke last night that HBO is gearing up to explore the extensive history of Westeros with a new spinoff series centered around Aegon’s Conquest. According to a report from James Hibberd and Borys Kit for The Hollywood Reporter, the network has enlisted much-in-demand writer Mattson Tomlin to develop the project.

Last year, we noted news out of Variety that HBO had starting looking into bringing Aegon’s Conquest to the small screen (and, perhaps, even the big screen—a theatrical lead-in was under discussion) and actively sought a writer to head the development of this thrilling prequel series. That search seems to have ended.

The burning of Harrenhal during Aegon’s Conquest, as depicted by artist Marc Simonetti for the 2023 World of Fire and Blood Calendar

At a press event, HBO’s Casey Bloys unveiled a first-look trailer at the second season of House of the Dragon, according to Variety. While details of the trailer are embargoed, we’re guessing that it’ll air within the month, and perhaps within days.

Bloys also indicated something that seems to confirm our speculation when a casting call went out in the UK: Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is “will begin shooting next spring, pending the end of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.” That caveat is a curious detail there, which suggests that they plan for at least one significant role going to a North American actor… or maybe they’re just wanting to leave open the possibility? But I’m guessing the former, they have their sights on someone.

Will those fan-casting Oscar Isaac as Baelor Breakspear be getting their wish? We’ll have to wait and see!

Out on X, fans waiting for any drip of news regarding House of the Dragon or any other Game of Thrones successor got their wish today ... maybe. This casting call began to make the rounds of fandom, fromthe official account of British casting director Lucy Bevan:

It’s an open casting for an HBO show, presumably filming or about the UK, and they’re looking for just two characters right now which suggests they’re leads: a young boy of 9-10 with green or blue eyes, pale skin, and a “neutral English accent”, and then a “soldier” who is at least 6’4” tall with a “humble disposition” who is also “perceptive and thoughtful” and of any ethnicity. This seems suspiciously like what HBO would call for when casting for the roles of Egg and Ser Duncan the Tall, respectively, for the straight-to-series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight!

With the recent end of the WGA strike (the second longest in its history), Variety has issued a report touching on Hollywood trying to get back into motion after the work stoppage, citing a number of shows. One paragraph in particular, however, discusses HBO specifically, noting that a number of their shows saw no production at all… but one big one, House of the Dragon, has in fact wrapped filming:

Summer 2024 sounds pretty good to us.

Of course, besides HotD, the end of the strike also means that scriptwriting can resume on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which HBO had ordered straight to series just before the strike.

Very interesting report from Deadline Hollywood‘s Nellie Andreeva following an interview with Franesca Orsi, HBO’s head of drama. It’s a wide-ranging interview covering a lot of HBO’s shows, but for our purposes, the most interesting tidbits relate to House of the Dragon, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, and potential other Westeros shows.

Addressing the on-going production of season 2 of House of the Dragon, Orsi noted that HBO was fully prepared to rewrite and reshoot anything that needed fixing once the WGA strike ends and the writers can take up their pens again to do writing work, but until then they are confident with the completed scripts they had to work with and have not dealyed producation at all. Speaking of a potential season 3 approval, it sounds like they’re not far from giving an immediate go ahead to season 3 to try and improve the turnaround from season to season. That said, how many seasons for the show in total remains a question:

George R.R. Martin has posted to his “Not a Blog” to discuss the big news that HBO has ordered A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight (a working title, GRRM notes, that is not finalized) straight to series. George goes into some more detail about the project, pointing out that he first floated the Dunk & Egg stories for adaptation seven years ago, so things can move slowly… until they don’t. He also notes that despite reports (spurred by his own remarks that some things had been shelved, and some shifts of the Starling Inc. website that we reported on here), both the 10,000 Ships and Sea Snake shows remain in development. But more on that later.

On A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, George has some particular new details to share:

In a big presentation to announce their upcoming plans, including the launch of a new streaming service combining HBO MAX and Discovery+ called MAX, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they had ordered A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight straight to series (no pilot episode) with the following log-line describing the basic idea of the show, which is based on the Dunk & Egg novellas:

Fans have long wanted to see Dunk & Egg brought to the screen, as they give a very unique look into the Seven Kingdoms and the Targaryens from the eyes of a man of low birth who rises to great fame over his lifetime. Notably, HBO has also shared details about the writers and executive producers for this series.

To mark the occasion of the official start of production of House of the Dragon, HBO has put out a press release with the announcement, a remark from showrunner and lead writer Ryan Condal, and some other notes, plus a nice behind-the-scenes shot of the Iron Throne:

Variety has an exclusive scoop: HBO is actively considering a TV show about Aegon’s Conquest, which would take the Game of Thrones franchise back to the very beginning of the establishment of the Targaryen dynasty in Westeros. Per Variety:

The full story of Aegon’s Conquest was first told in The World of Ice and Fire, which was later expanded with more information about the aftermath in Fire & Blood.

Some significant House of the Dragon news reported by Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva, who has received word (and confirmed some parts of it with HBO) that for “story-driven” reasons the plan of a 10 episode 2nd season has been changed to an 8 episode 2nd season, which has necessitated some re-writing and likely has contributed to the slight delays to the planned commencement of filming (however, production is imminent and the prospective air date remains summer 2024). Per Andreeva’s report:

Interestingly, Andreeva notes that even with the reduction of two episodes, Condal and GRRM are still discussing whether three or four seasons work better. Her piece goes into some more detail about just what was moved out of the 2nd season for the prospective 3rd season, which we’ll quote below and speculate on a bit.

Variety has a report drawn from a longer profile of HBO and HBO Max content CEO Casey Bloys. In it, Bloys suggests that summer 2024 is a good guess for when the second season of House of the Dragon would air. Like the season before it, this second season is due to start in March, and as we know from that first season it wasn’t until August of the following year that the season premiered, so this seems in line with expectations.

Bloys also goes on to make comments on more Game of Thrones spin-offs:

Half way through the season, and “The Princess and the Queen” makes the boldest jump yet as a decade has passed since the previous episode, new actors play key roles, and a passel of new young characters appear. Linda and I return with with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. Lots of background in this particular episode:

Ser Laenor supports Princess Rhaenyra as she’s called to present the newborn Prince Joffrey to the queen.

This tweet says it all:

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, James Hibberd provides a bit more detail, citing HBO’s report that in the US the show has cleared over 20 million viewers since the premiere, the kind of strong opening they were hoping for.

Hot on the heels of EW‘s exclusive, the Hollywood Reporter has published a two-part extravaganza from Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon chronicler James Hibberd (Part 1, Part 2 digging further into both the origins of House of the Dragon, its story and production, and the future of the show as well as other shows in the Game of Thrones universe.

Prince Daemon trying out his brothers chair.