Westeros

In one of the first interviews with House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal since HBO’s straight-to-series order was announced, Beyond the Trailer‘s Grace Randolph manages to draw out a few details about the show and Condal’s relationship to the novels and George R.R. Martin in the course of discussing his passion (and that of fellow guest, writer and Veep showrunner David Mandel) for collecting Hollywood memorabila.

Besides revealing himself to be a very knowledgeable collector (for example, he shares the fact that there were only two hats used for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark), he reveals a handful of things about the show:

• The show has already hired a costume designer and a production designer. Rumors early in the year suggested Deborah Riley was on board as production designer, resuming her role from Game of Thrones, but this has not been confirmed.
• As far as costumes and production design go, Condal says fellow showrunner Miguel Sapochnik‘s mantra has been, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” meaning that the show will draw heavily from the costuming and production design already featured on Game of Thrones. However, Condal mentions that they will look for subtle ways to tweak costumes and production designs to visually suggest that the show is set some “200 years” in the past from the original TV show.

It’s an entertaining interview with both writers/showrunners, with some fun anecdotes and some very neat examples of memorabilia (lets just say both Condal and Mandel are fans of certain iconic Lucasfilm movies). Well-worth watching the whole thing! The interview promotes Mandel’s and Condal’s new podcast, The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of, which is focused on collecting props. The first two episodes released yesterday, and can be found at all the major podcast sources.

Half a year since Folio Society published A Clash of Kings, they’ve now released A Storm of Swords with Jonathan Burton continuing his gorgeous illustration and design contributions to the series.

Once again, stellar work from the Folio Society. Fans of George R.R. Martin, and bibliophiles generally, should appreciate these. Thanks to the Folio Society, we also have two images to share from the two-volume A Storm of Swords which we’ll include with the press release below!

Robb Stark preparing to execute Lord Karstark in the godswood of Riverrun.

(Illustration © Jonathan Burton 2020 from The Folio Society edition of George R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords, exclusively available at foliosociety.com)

UK Production News, a database for film productions in the UK which has proven to be a reliable source of information, has updated as of yesterday with information concerning the production of House of the Dragon, which reveald yesterday its first lead casting. First reported by Redanian Intelligence, a website focused primarily on The Witcher but which has kept a close eye on other genre productions, the database was updated to show two things: that the main production hub would be Warner Bros. Leavesden Studio complex and that plans now seem to begin filming in late 2020.

Redanian Intelligence‘s report shows the full listing of information from the database as of yesterday, but a visit today shows that it was updated with one more piece of information, that the first season is 10 episodes, which was reported back in July when the straight-to-series order was announced. So, no apparent change there.

From EW’s James Hibberd (whose Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon [paid link] is now out), HBO has revealed the first actor cast in next year’s House of the Dragon: Englsh actor Paddy Considine, known for a variety of roles including Edgar Wright comedies and, most recently, HBO’s The Outsider. According to the report, he has been cast to play King Viserys I Targaryen.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)” href=“https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paddy_Considine_2011_(cropped).jpg”>CC BY-SA from the Cambridge Film Festival