Westeros

GRRM has finally gotten his wish to break some news regarding House of the Dragon, revealing that British actor Fabien Frankel has been cast in the role of Criston Cole, a knight who will remembered (and reviled) in later days as the Kingmaker. A classically-trained actor who attended RADA and LAMBDA, he is a relative newcomer with his first credits in 2019 (the Emilia Clarke romcom Last Christmas, no less!) Most recently he has appeared in The Serpent, a BBC-Netflix co-production.

Fabien Frankel in Gone Today. Here Tomorrow.

HBO has unleashed a wave of promotion for the “Iron Anniversary”, marking the 10th year since A Game of Thrones premiered. To mark the occasion, a teaser has been made… and many things have been planned during the month-long celebration, including some new and unique collaborations, curated viewing experiences, and a “MaraThrone” series binge which will bring actors from the show to rally fans towards giving to a number of charitable causes.

One of the most unique of the collaborations is with the world-famous jeweler firm Fabergé, who is producing a one-of-a-kind jewelled egg. More details below.

Well, more correctly, it sounds like something from A Song of Ice and Fire is coming to Broadway, as HBO is not formally involved in any way (but has the option to invest)...

You may remember this post from a month ago, where we stumbled across Vince Gerardis’s website for Startling Inc., which listed a project called “A Song of Ice and Fire with The Works” as being in development. Interestingly, we checked a couple of days ago, and that reference was gone. But the project was not, in fact, dead. It is, in fact, very much alive. Producers Simon Painter and Tim Lawson (of, ahem, The Works Entertainment; although, notably, The Works is not named in the piece, while Kilburn Live is… so perhaps this is a project they’re doing separately from their company?) are working from a story provided by George R.R. Martin to write a spectacular stage play—targetting, New York’s Broadway, London’s West End, and Australia—concerning the events at the Tourney at Harrenhal.

George R.R. Martin’s Stagecoach Foundation has teamed up with Legion M for a unique virtual event bringing together a number of Wild Cards authors (Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, Carolne Spector, Carrie Vaughn, and Max Gladsone) to livestream a Wild Cards gaming session which aired last night. On top of that, tonight will see a live auction stream for a number of donated items covering Wild Cards, A Song of Ice and Fire, comics, a one hour chat with noted game designer Warren Spector (Deus Ex) and even a private tour of Meow Wolf’s forthcoming Denver experience.

The streaming schedule and more information can be found at Legion M’s event page, while the full list of items for auction can be found at Bidpal.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, George R.R. Martin has renewed his overall deal with HBO, this time for a reported “mid-eight figure” contract that spans five years. An overall deal is one in which any new ideas or pitches a creator generates will belong to the studio. George first signed an overall deal with HBO back in 2013, which was then renewed in 2016. The article proceeds to run through the five projects in various stages of development, as well as House of the Dragon which begins filming next month if all goes to plan. We did like the speculation on the animated project:

Dark Sword Miniatures, one of the longest-running license-holders for works related to A Song of Ice and Fire, has surprised us by revealing that legendary miniature sculptor Tom Meier has added to the George R.R. Martin Masterworks series by sculpting Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters Visenya and Rhaenys.

Aegon Targaryen, the Conqueror, as sculpted by Tom Meier and painted by Anne Foerster.

Last night (for us here in Sweden, in any case), Deadline added to our knowledge of the projects HBO is actively considering as part of a greater Game of Thrones-universe of successor shows. This appears to bring the total of shows in development to five or six, from what we’ve been told, including work on The Tales of Dunk and Egg, an unspecified animated project, a possible Robert’s Rebellion show (which we still think may be the A Song of Ice and Fire project mentioned by Vince Gerardis’s Startling Inc. website) and the three that follow:

• 9 Voyages, or The Sea Snake, in development with Rome-creator Bruno Heller, which would presumably be predominantly an adventurous series focused on the young Corlys Velaryon’s famous sea voyages.
• 10,000 Ships, about the flight of the Rhoynar from Essos and their long journey under the leadership of Princess Nymeria. No writers currently attached.
• Flea Bottom, about the notorious district in King’s Landing. No writers currently attached.

A legendary ice dragon in the Shivering Sea. Corlys Velaryon is never claimed to have seen one on his own attempt to sail as far north as men can, but other sailors have.

It’s one of those days again, it seems. Shortly after we shared news on the status of the Wild Cards TV adaptation, George R.R. Martin posted his own update. The first was an item we had forgotten to post an update about, namely that just after we revealed that Sandkings was in development at Netflix, by sheer coincidence Collider had learned in an interview that director Gore Verbinski (Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean) was set to direct it, with screenwriter Dennis Kelly (Utopia) writing the script for the high-budget film adaptation of the famous, award-winning science fiction horror story.

George goes on to fill in some details on some other projects, some of which touch on things we recently revealed.

Screenshot from the 1995 Outer Limits adaptation of “Sandkings”. The “castle” features the face of Dr. Simon Kress, played by Beau Bridges in the episode.

About two weeks ago, we were the first to report that the long-gestating Wild Cards TV adaptation, originally set for Hulu, had moved to NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Now The Hollywood Reporter has filled in the blanks, providing details of what Hulu did with the project, why it moved from Hulu to Peacock, and what its current status is since the lead writer has moved on, and a new writer is currently being searched for.

Some salient quotes below:

Cover art by Brian Bolland for a re-release of the first edition.

Is A Song of Ice and Fire in development at someone not named HBO? Strangely, that may be the case from something we uncovered following yesterday’s post on some recent development updates.

This led us to some digging and and we discovered that Vince Gerardis’s new company Startling Inc. has an official website with a long, long list of various literary works that are in development at various studios, networks, and production companies. As an science fiction and fantasy fan, a lot of the titles are familiar—works by Robert Silverberg, David Eddings, Kim Stanley Robinsion, Larry Niven, Greg Bear, and more are all represented. But Three of these are of special interest to fans of George R.R. Martin: Wild Cards, Sandkings, and something titled A Song of Ice and Fire without HBO explicitly linked to it.

A fan-made ASoIaF logo from artist Ertaç Altınöz

UPDATE on March 4, 2021: George R.R. Martin has posted about the development of In the Lost Lands.

“Some recent piece of development news regarding George R.R. Martin has slipped out the last couple of days. First, GRRM and Kalinda Vazquez are set to develop Roger Zelazny’s novel Roadmark for HBO. A science fiction/fantasy blend, the basic concept is of a mysterious, endless road that travereses time, space, and alternate realities that travelers can use to explore and even try to change the past, present, and future.

Martin has posted about it at his “Not a Blog”, noting that it was one of five pitches he made to HBO as part of his overall development deal with them, all of them based on notable works of science fiction and fantasy that he believed could work well adapted. Vince Gerardis, who helped package Game of Thrones, will also have a co-executive credit.

To simplify the website going forward, Linda and I have been working on folding the GoT sub-section of the site into the general Westeros site. This was in part due to the fact that with the prospect of not one but several spin-offs, it felt like it’d be confusing to create sub-sections for each of them.

So far, the old GoT News, Features, and Gallery sections are now part of the general Westeros site. Old inks to those GoT pages should redirect correctly to their new locations. The Episode and Character Guides are presently inaccessible until we move those over as well.

During the regular TCA presentations, where various networks and studios present themselves, performers, and new shows to the Television Critic Association, Casey Bloys had a number of things to say about Game of Thrones prequels and projects. Deadline has a detailed report, and The Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Bloys that touches on it as well.

The main takeaway—beyond the more concrete reveal that House of the Dragon is going into production in April—is that while reports of prequels being explored in live and animated form, it’s still very much up in the air. Though Bloys suggests that “zero” of these shows going forward would be the “wrong number”, it’ll be a matter of finding stories worth telling (and, one hopes, worth telling well!) that determines how many of these shows will go ahead.

HBO has announced a number of additional castings for House of the Dragon, which is set to begin filming this April. Deadline has a good report with details based on HBO’s official press release, but we’ll summarize here:

• Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Hand of the King
• Steve Touissant as Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides
• Eve Best as Rhaenys Targaryen
• Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria

In a brief post at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin shares some thoughts on the previous year. A dark time, as he notes, with the global pandemic, and the loss of a number of friends such as Susan Ellison, Kay McCauley, Ben Bova, and Phyllis Eisenstein, while other friends are in poor health. Still, he is hopeful for the future, especially as one of the more positive developments last year was the best writing streak he’s ever had on The Winds of Winter.

In his own words: