Westeros

Well, this was big, surprising news. The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd has reported that after three, exhausting years working on bringing the first season of House of the Dragon to the screen Miguel Sapochnik is leaving the show and Ryan Condal will be the sole show runner. However, the very experienced director Alan Taylor—who played a key role in directing a number of early episodes of Game of Thrones—has come on board as an executive producer and director instead.

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.

Been a long time since we’ve done one of these, and suffice it to say the combination of rusty recollection plus a bunch of new equipment made this a bit of a trial. Add a very lively puppy plus sundry other things, and this video is later than we hoped, but it’s done. As we remarked in our “Not a Review” of the first six episodes, we’re not really reviewing the show (as we did—and then Linda did solo after I quit—with Game of Thrones) but instead discussing some of the choices and changes made in the adaptation, as well as providing some background information and (of course) dragon facts.

You can see the episode below:

We’ve had the opportunity to watch the first six episodes of House of the Dragon, courtesy of HBO Max, and we certainly have some thoughts about the show. We’ve placed our “Not a Review” in our Features section which hasn’t seen much use since Game of Thrones came to an end, so go read it there.

A brand new promo ahead of the airing of House of the Dragon... and it includes an excellent look at the last living dragon from the Conquest, Vhagar:

And here is our last interview from the European premiere of House of the Dragon, with co-show runner and head writer Ryan Condal. Though it’s the last interview from the event, it’s not going to be our last interview with Ryan, who’s agreed to sit down with Westeros.org for a proper interview in the next few days. Feel free to comment on the video below with any questions you’d like to ask and we’ll try and pick the ones we find the most interesting to present to Ryan!

As promised, here are the next two interviews we managed to get from the press pit at the European premiere of House of the Dragon! In this pairing, we talk to Emma D’Arcy (Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen) and Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon). You’ll find the interviews below the image I took of the replica of Balerion the Black Dread’s skull during the Dragon’s Den interactive event.

Below you’ll find two of the five interviews we, and our good friend Javi Marcos of Spanish fan site Los Siete Reinos who kindly helped us out by bringing along and manning the camera equipment, secured as part of the press pool at the red carpet for the European premiere of House of the Dragon in Amsterdam. We’ll release the other three over the next couple of days. Red carpet interviews tend to be short, and these were no different: there were more than a dozen outlets present and each only had limited time, especially as the screening time drew near. Still, we enjoyed the spectacle, and I even got to sit on the new version of the Iron Throne with Javi perched beside me (I joked he was Mushroom).

You’ll find the two interviews below!

Tisdagen den 16 augusti premiärvisas första avsnittet av House of the Dragon på biograf Rigoletto i Stockholm och du och en vän kan vara där! I samarbete med HBO Max tävlar Westeros.org ut biljetter till eventet. För att ha chansen att vinna, svara på inlägget på Twitter från @westerosorg och berätta för oss vad du skulle döpa din drake till! Glöm inte att tagga ditt svar #HBOMaxNordic och #HouseoftheDragon och svara senast den 14/8.

We’ve an exciting opportunity for fans of Game of Thrones who are excited about the forth-coming House of the Dragon! Thanks to HBO Max Netherlands, we have a number of tickets that we’re giving away to attend the European premiere of House of the Dragon on August 11th. The event will be a grand affair taking place at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, featuring members of the cast and crew as well as the Dragon’s Den, a unique interactive experience that will open first for guests of the premiere before opening for the general public on the 12th and 13th of August. We’ll post some more of the official information below, but the essential point is… how do you enter the contest? See below!

A pleasant surprise today, as the official Game of Thrones channels dropped a new video, this time a rather unique one as it had George R.R. Martin narrating the history of the Targaryens (as well as the Hightowers and Velaryons) that leads up to the time of The House of the Dragons, with animated graphics from none other than artist Doug Wheatley, the illustrator of Fire and Blood.

Very interesting that the Hightowers get a little bit of focus in this video. The Velaryons are to be expected, of course, although an interesting thing we noticed about this video is that it only mentions the marriage of Corlys to Rhaenys as one of the ties the families have to one another, when of course Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters had a Velaryon mother. It’s a short video, but since Aegon and the Conquest was mentioned, it seemed like a detail they could have slipped in there if they wanted to.

On August 2nd, The Complete Guide to House of the Dragon will hit shelves across the country, a one-of-a-kind deep dive into the forthcoming HBO series. Among it’s many features? A lengthy exclusive interview with George R. R. Martin, discussing the show, it’s origins in Fire and Blood and The World of Ice and Fire, and more!

HBO has released two new videos today. The more interesting of the two is the later one, a behind-the-scenes video titled “Returning to Westeros”:

Some really interesting footage, particulary of Laena’s actress riding her dragon and then a sort of realtime pre-viz showing roughly what the shot will look like. Some real high technology going into the show! And of course, as already mentioned, the fact that they’ve built a massive Red Keep set with interlocking rooms so that one can do a “walk-and-talk” through various levels, rooms, and corridors—rather than the more economical approach of cutting away and showing only absolutely necessary rooms with one or two hallways being redressed to serve as multitudes—is impressive. Finally, you’ll catch more than a few glimpses of the sons of Alicent and Rhaenyra in the course of this

See the extended trailer below, which has a bit of added footage from the recently released full trailer!

As promised, we’ve put together a gallery of over thirty images from across the brand new trailer, images selected because we’ve some relevant details about what’s shown, or just because we wanted to highlight something. You can see the slideshow of images below! Note that almost all links go to the Wiki of Ice and Fire, which contain spoilers if you’re not familiar with Fire and Blood.

As the Warner Bros Shop announces “The Day of the Dragon”, HBO gets on board by releasing a brand new poster featuring the young Rhaenyra Targaryen in full regalia with a dragon looms behind her, and a few other licensed products start to make their way out of the gate—including two beers from Danish craft brewer Mikkeller, a set of wines from Vintage Wine Estates, and another set of wines from Australia’s Treasury Vintage Wines.

Rhaenyra Targaryen with a dragon looming over her.