Westeros

The final trailer for season 2 of House of the Dragon (HBO/Max, June 16th) is now online, and it’s quite the spectacle as we see battles, dragons, skullduggery, and more as the conflict between the siblings King Aegon II and Queen Rhaenyra breaks out into full-blown war. 

More details from HBO below!

Straight from Max’s press desk is the announcement of a unique contest for musical artists in the US (and D.C.), challenging them to create remixes of the House of the Dragon theme using stems available at Beatport’s Loopcloud platform. Judges for the contest will include Beatport, Ed Banger Records, and “select cast members from HBO’s House of the Dragon”.

And the prize? Per the announcement:

HBO has released a two minute behind the scenes video featuring comments from showrunner Ryan Condal and an array of the show’s leading actors, including Matt Smith, Emma d’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Olivia Cooke, and more. Lots of glimpses of heraldry, which we always love to see… but yet again we seem to be getting some confusion between who’s using the two-legged dragon and who is using the four-legged dragon. At this stage, I suspect they’ll never really hammer out the details on that one!

In other news from the world of HBO’s expanion of the Game of Thrones universe, Redanian Intelligence has reported, and which has since been verified and expanded on by The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd, that director Owen Harris was on board to direct episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Per Hibberd, Harris is directing three of the six episodes, which makes us wonder if Harry Bradbeer (also revealed by Redanian Intelligence) is directing the other three. For those who don’t know Harris’s name, he’s directed our favorite episode of Black Mirror, the widely-acclaimed (including winning a Hugo Award!) “San Junipero”.

Also, an interesting note from Hibberd that the show has lost its subtitle of “The Hedge Knight”. This could be a promising sign, in a way, since it could be taken to mean that HBO may be inclined to see this as a continuing series rather than a one-off limited series. We wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of the episodes gets titled “The Hedge Knight”.

Production on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to begin next month. House of the Dragon returns to screens on June 16th.

Returning triumphantly to ground that she broke almost 12 years ago, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel‘s The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook: Recipes from King’s Landing to the Dothraki Sea, has shown her growth as a writer of cookbooks since that first effort long ago. Now a veteran cookbook writer with well over a dozen cookbooks under her belt, all based around popular genre properties such as World Craft, The Elder Scrolls, Star Wars, and Star Trek, she brings her formidable experience and talent to bear as she provides fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, and (next year!) A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, 80 brand new recipes to satisfy any craving.

An interesting blast from the past, courtesy of Paul Moore’s Inverse interview with acclaimed screenwriter Brian Helgeland. Way back in 2017, HBO hired writers to develop successor shows to Game of Thrones, and Helgeland was among those named. Helgeland would go on to refer to the project in development the year after, but details remained thin as to what exactly he worked on.

Well, they are thin no longer, as this quote from the interview shows:

Princess Nymeria as depicted by J.K. Drummond for The World of Ice and Fire, the “Westeros encyclopedia” referred to be Helgelnd.

HBO has just revealed that they have cast the two leads for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, known to fans world wide as Dunk and Egg. Peter Claffey, an Irish rugby player-turned-ctor, will be Ser Duncan the Tall. Dexter Sol Ansell has in turn been cast as Dunk’s squire Egg; Ansell’s been acting since the age of 4, and most recently appeared as the young Coriolanus in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to begin filming in Northern Ireland, the old stomping grounds of Game of Thrones, in June with production likely to last several months.

On top of the two trailers to announce the June 16th premiere of House of the Dragon, HBO has also released some new images featuring characters (and one dragon). You can see them below!

Not just one but two trailers have dropped. A Black Trailer and a Green Trailer, further doubling own on the sides in the conflict.

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.

Just a little over half a day left on CMON‘s crowd fundraising campaign for their next ASoIaF-based game, A Song of Ice and Fire: Tactics. Made to the same scale as their miniatures games (with thanks to Dark Sword Miniatures, who hold the license for all miniatures), this tactics-based game has already very much cleared its fundraising goal, with over 5500 backers raising $1.6 million (and counting). There’s some pretty impressive miniatures on display, in particular an enormous Drogon miniature that is a crowndfunding exclusive.

Here’s a trailer for the game from CMON:

Below, you’ll find the press release for the game with additional information!

Thanks to publishing news site Edelweiss, we’ve learned the full list of featured locations in the upcoming A Song of Ice and Fire 2025 Calendar, which we previously reported on back in December when the cover art, featuring Starfall, was revealed. All the illustrations are by artist Eddie Mendoza, whose work has previously graced The Rise of the Dragon.

Here’s the list of all 13 featured locations, continuing the tradition of twelve images for the months and a bonus two-page spread:

• Moat Cailin
• Dragonstone
• the Inn at the Crossroads
• the Nightfort
• the Bridge of Skulls

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

A press release from the WB Shop brought to our attention that HBO is releasing some new House of the Dragon merchandise for this year, taking inspiration from the forthcoming Lunar New Year on February 10th to dub this the “Year of the Dragon”. As you’d expect, there’s a strong dragon-focus.

We’ll point out some of the items they make a point of, after this pretty cool banner featuring Caraxes

At this year’s Primetime Creative Arts Emmys, House of the Dragon entered the show with a total of eight nominations in the category (plus a final, yet-to-be-determined, nomination in the regular Emmys for Outstanding Drama). Unfortunately, other shows—particularly HBO sibling The Last of Us—snatched away most of the prizes, but in one category the show proved victorious: Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-fi Costumes! Leading the names credited with the victory was season 1 costume designer Jany Temime, who posted about it on her Instagram:

The Primetime Emmys will air next Sunday.

Via the ever-watchful Redanian Intelligence, we learn that HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight has been pushed from a Spring to Summer 2024 production start. We reported back in October on a suspicious casting call that certainly seemed to fit the bill for casting of Dunk and Egg, and the update from RA seems to certainly confirm this as the same casting director, Lucy Bevan, is listed in the update in Production Monthly:

It’s great to see that Northern Ireland will once again host filming of matter from the Game of Thrones universe, as there are many hundreds of talented Northern Irish actors, extras, production, and craftspeople who helped bring Game of Thrones to life who’ll surely do the same for this show. Northern Ireland also has a wealth of possible filming locations.

Ser Duncan the Tall and his diminutive squire, Egg, by Gary Gianni.