Westeros

Today sounds like an exciting day for eager House of the Dragon followers, as the Warner Bros. Shop names today, June 22nd, the “Day of the Dragon” and has dropped a large collection of House of the Dragon merchandise on the new shop, including a limited edition bomber jacket that looks very smart, as well as a few bits-and-bobs from Game of Thrones (including Sansa’s crown!)

Below you’ll see the limited edition bomber jacket, and click through to the full article for the press release from Warner Bros. as well as a slideshow gallery featuring a number of the new items that can be ordered or pre-ordered!

The official House of the Dragon twitter account woke up today with a few tweets and new character posters (more on those below)... but all that led up to the release of an official teaser trailer:

It’s a pretty epic trailer (if, concerningly, rather dark and desaturated) featuring all the chief characters, a Red Keep in the midst of renovation or expansion, Kingsguard, gold cloaks, violence, the Great Council at Harrenhal… and of course, dragons. Besides the new trailer, HBO also released a number of brand new character posters featuring key characters, which you can find below.

A new report from Variety shares a piece of information from an anonymous “production insider”: the 10 episode first season of House of the Dragon managed an average per episode budget somewhat under $20 million. This is cited as a great achievement given rising production costs and the greater number of dragons that will need to be CGed in the series. Variety reports:

[T]he production insider says HBO is now so adept at these world-building series through years of not just GoT, but also producing Westworld”and His Dark Materials, that the team can make a high-quality series as efficiently and effectively as possible.

By way of comparison, the final season of Game of Thrones cost somewhere in the vicinity of $15 million an episode.

A dragon egg on the verge of hatching accompanies the announcement from HBO that House of the Dragon will premiere on August 21st of this year. Along with the poster, HBO has also sent out eight new images featuring a variety of characters from the series, that you can see below.

With a ten episode run, that means it’ll end on October 23rd… just two days prior to the release of The Rise of the Dragon. Interesting timing, that… For more on this informational art book that very much ties in to the events covered by House of the Dragon, see here.

Over at Not a Blog, George R.R. Martin has provided fans a lengthy update on The Winds of Winter, HBO’s successor shows, and more… and in the process lets the cat out of the bag regarding one project we here at Westeros.org have been working on for the last couple of years.

We’ll provide a quick summary below:

The Three Chroniclers, by Chase Stone.

Random House has revealed their publishing plans for the summer, and fans have noticed that July seems particularly stacked with House of the Dragon tie-ins using Fire and Blood as the focal material.

First, Random House revealed that on July 12th they will publish tie-in editions of Fire and Blood that will feature a cover using photography from House of the Dragon. Second, Random House announced that the 2023 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, to release on July 19, will be based entirely on Fire and Blood. And, in a departure from the previous calendars, this will feature an array of artists rather than just one. No word yet as to who has contributed.

Fans may notice these July dates, and speculation has run that the dating relates to the as-yet-unannounced premiere of House of the Dragon.

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A sit-down with various media outlets has provided some fresh information from Casey Bloys, HBO’s and HBO Max’s chief content officer, regarding the future of the Game of Thrones franchise, from the release date of House of the Dragon to the status of a number of projects in development. While there’s nothing really concrete, the one thing Bloys committed to is that House of the Dragon is definitely airing this year, but that the conversation has only just now started thanks to the show officially wrapping.

We’ll provide a brief bullet point of the main information that came out of the interview with Bloys:

A new book released today, James Andrew Miller’s Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, is a massive 1,000 page tome that looks at the rise of HBO as the destination for prestige television from the past and all the way to the present. In the course of it, of course, the book can’t but help touch on Game of Thrones. While it covers ground already revealed in past interviews and books (such as James Hibberd’s Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon), there’s a few new details… particularly from a voice fans have not heard before, George R.R. Martin’s long-time entertainment agent, Paul Haas, concerning the final season and its relation to GRRM’s plans for A Song of Ice and Fire.

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George R.R. Martin in the Eyrie on the set of Game of Thrones.

In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd, co-showrunner and director Miguel Sapochnik offers a bit of insight into House of the Dragon, assuring viewers that the show honors Game of Thrones while at the same time being its own thing, with its own story to tell and its own tone.

One of the quotes from Sapochnik in more detail: ‘I think we were very respectful of what the original show is. It wasn’t broken so we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. House of the Dragon has its own tone that will evolve and emerge over the course of the show. But first, it’s very important to pay respects and homage to the original series, which was pretty groundbreaking. We’re standing on the shoulders of that show and we’re only here because of that show. So the most important thing for us to do is to respect that show as much as possible and try and compliment it rather than reinvent it. And I was involved in making the original show, so I feel like that’s been useful. Like, I’m not arriving going, “Let’s change everything! Let’s do a different color palette!” No, I quite like the color palette.’

The newly released teaser has enough interesting images in it of characters, scenes, and costumes and props that we thought we should comment on a selection of them. Images, and our thoughts, follow!

Ryan Condal’s and David Mandel’s The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast about movie and television prop collecting has returned after a mid-season hiatus, and it starts with a bang as Condal recruits none other than George R. R. Martin to discuss his own history as a collector, as well as just a wee bit of discussion of House of the Dragons at the end. Fans should find this one pretty interesting, in particular George’s feelings regarding the ideal adapters of his work going forward.

Discussion of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon related matter begins around the 1 hour, 18 minute mark.

Last month, we shared that Ryan J. Condal’s and David H. Mandel’s podcast focused on film and television props, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, would have an episode featuring a head of department from House of the Dragon. That episode has now aired, and reveals (among other things) that the show’s master armourer and head of the armoury department (which provides all the weapons for the show) is Tim Lewis, a leading armourer in the film industry with credits such as The Outlaw King, The Old Guard, and Ridley Scott’s upcoming The Last Duel.

Lewis’s website includes an extensive gallery of some of his work across a number of films. In the course of the podcast, Condal and Lewis of course discussed a bit of what’s going on on House of the Dragon. More details below:

Swords made for The Outlaw King and Macbeth, designed by Tim Lewis.

HBO has confirmed two new names of actresses cast in the in-production House of the Dragon, and these are particularly interesting as they reveal that flashbacks will be used to convey part of the background to the events of the Dance of the Dragons. Per Hollywood Reporter, Milly Alcock and Emily Carey are part of the cast of the production. Alcock will be playing a young Rhaenyra Targaryen while Carey will play a young Alicent Hightower.

Milly Alcock, hailing from Australia, has appeared in a number of Australian television dramas and mini-series. Emily Carey, from the UK, has also done some television work, but has also been seen in film—notably, playing the young Diana of Themyscira in the first Wonder Woman and the young Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander.

Things have been quiet on the House of the Dragon front since their filming in Cornwall led to fans getting their first glimpses of some of the lead actors in costume. Now, thanks to Spanish newspaper Hoy, we learn (thanks to our friends at Los Siete Reinos) that House of the Dragon is set to film for three weeks in October in the Extremaduran city of Cáceres and the town of Trujillo. Both of these were used during filming of Game of Thrones, with the town of Trujillo providing the walls of King’s Landing and Cáceres as the location for a procession scene in King’s Landing featuring Euron Greyjoy as well as scenes set in Oldtown.

Per Los Siete Reinos, the three weeks would include pre-production time, so actual filming there will be shorter.

Update June 30th: A second article from Hoy concerning the filming in Cáceres also reveals that the show will be filming in the Portuguese village of Monsanto.

The second season of Ryan J. Condal’s and David H. Mandel’s podcast about movie props, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, has launched. This first episode is ostensibly about the 40th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the bullwhip famously wielded by Indiana Jones, but in the course of it some hints about House of the Dragons were provided by Condal.

The first piece of information concerned plans for future episodes, with Condal stating that he’ll be getting one of the members of the HotD production to be a guest to discuss what he or she does. He did promise it would be spoiler-free, because otherwise he’d be fired, but we can expect some interesting discussion in the weeks to come.

The second piece of information was that Condal confirmed there would be “bespoke” swords for “heroes”—that is, custom-made swords for leads and significant characters—but that the armorer that has been hired for the show has a vast supply of swords from past productions he has worked on that will be among those used for background performers and the like. In fact, according to Condal, the supply of past weaponry or armor that an armorer or swordsmith can bring to a production is part of the calculation when deciding who to hire.

So, whoever is responsible for the swords on House of the Dragon is someone with a great deal of experience making swords for film and television productions. We would guess that they are also UK based, as it would just be very convenient. Interestingly, Condal mentioned Terry English (Excalibur, Aliens) several times in the course of the podcast, but a look at his credits suggest he may be retired from the gruelling production schedule.