Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
News
Via our friends at Los Siete Reinos, we’ve learned that an on-line resume, posted by his representatives at the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, shows that award-winning Game of Thrones and Westworld composer Ramin Djawadi is returning to Westeros to compose the soundtrack of the forthcoming House of the Dragon.
Following on recent news that HBO is taking pitches for prequels to Game of Thrones, The Hollywood Reporter has now revealed that another aspect of the process of turning Game of Thrones to new material is exploring creating an “adult-leaning” animated series. Per the article:
“Meetings with writers for the adult-leaning project, which would be similar in tone to HBO’s Emmy-winning flagship, are already under way. No deals have been made and there’s still a possibility that the animated series never comes to fruition.
“Reps for HBO Max declined comment.
“The animated idea is part of a larger strategy to expand the world of creator George R.R. Martin’s fantasy drama. Sources say development executives at HBO — led by drama head Francesca Orsi and her group — are working directly with Martin on building out the sprawling Game of Thrones world. (Martin remains under a rich overall deal with the cabler.)”
Funnily enough, we brought up the possibility—or likelihood, really—that HBO and HBO Max would be looking to expand the world into different forms beyond just a standard hour-long, multi-episode series, much as Disney and Paramount have done with Star Wars, Marvel, and Star Trek. In fact, the THR report notes that HBO was looking in this direction long before Disney announced its massive expansion of Star Wars series.
Back in November, we mentioned that House of the Dragon exective producer, show runner, and lead writer Ryan Condal was co-hosting a podcast about film and television props with director and producer David Mandel. We’ve been keeping an eye on The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of since then, in large part because it’s genuinely interesting listening for those who share a similar interest in movie history (especially as Mandel and Condal also share a love of many of the same iconic late 70’s-80’s films—Aliens, Star Wars, Blade Runner, etc.—that we do).
Big news out of Hollywood today, as Variety first revealed that HBO is in early development on adapting the Dunk & Egg novellas (collected in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms [affiliate link]) to the screen:
“The one-hour show would be based on the series of fantasy novellas by George R. R. Martin, which follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg) 90 years prior to the events of “A Song of Ice and Fire.
“No writer or talent is currently attached to the project, but sources say it is a high priority for HBO as the premium cabler looks to build on the success of Game of Thrones.”
This was followed up half an hour later by EW’s James Hibberd (author of Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon [affiliate link]) reporting that it goes beyond Dunk & Egg:
“But that’s not all. HBO has been meeting with other top writers pitching others ideas based on Martin’s works. Among the ideas being contemplated is a prequel series based on Robert’s Rebellion, the war for the Iron Throne that upended Westeros a couple of decades before the events in Thrones. All the ideas are prequels; there are no sequels or spinoffs from the original series currently under consideration.
“One of the writers is a name familiar to HBO genre fans: Bruno Heller, who created the ambitious historical drama Rome [affiliate link], a series that was seen as a bit of a short-lived precursor to Thrones. That said, no writer is yet attached to any project.”
A few days ago, Random House and George R.R. Martin revealed the A Song of Ice and Fire 2022 Calendar (affiliate link), which will be illustrated—and gloriously so, by the looks of it—by Spanish artist Arantza Sestayo. As has become a tradition with these calendars, it will feature 12 paintings for each month, plus a bonus, double-page image to make 13 in total.
The calendar will be published on July 27th, but pre-orders are now available
HBO Max has released a look forward for the next year—a tradition HBO has been doing for many years—and decided to go a step further by hinting at things to come in 2022. Specifically, at the end of the video below, a dragon appears, breathes fire, and reveals what seems likely to be the logo for House of the Dragon (the three-headed dragon, of course, wreathed in flames):
This is not at all a surprise, as back in September HBO executives revealed that the show was being targeted for 2022. It’s interesting to see HBO Max using its arrival as the big hook for the final moment of its promotional video, however, showing that the company is puting a great deal of weight on it being a big draw to their platform.
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One female lead) has been cast as Alicent Hightower, Emma d’Arcy has been cast as Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown) has been cast as the “rogue prince”, Daemon Targaryen. This follows rumors along those lines about Smith over the last couple of weeks.
Princess Rhaenyra (depicted by Magali Villeneuve), Queen Alicent (depicted by Doug Wheatley), Prince Daemon (depicted by Marc Simonetti)
HBO’s official Game of Thrones social media channels have awoken to unleash the first concept art from House of the Dragon, featuring designs for two un-named dragons. We have some thoughts on just who they may be below…
The depiction of this dragon suggests it’s a young one, more similar in size to Daenerys’s dragons in the first half of GAME OF THRONES. By its coloring, we’re guessing this is a concept for Sunfyre, also known as Sunfyre the Golden.
Our friends at the Shire Post Mint, who are the only licensed purveyor of coins based on A Song of Ice and Fire, have launched their first ever “12 Days of Giving” event. It began on the 21st but will run through December 2nd. From their enormous catalog of coins and jewelry from ASoIaF as well as other fantasy settings (particularly licensed coins based on The Lord of the Rings), they’ve put together a special collection where many of the items are discounted by as much as 50%... and with the special promotional code, “FOREYULE2020”, you’ll get an additional 25% off the lowest-priced item in your cart.
Best of all, it’s for a good cause, as for every item you purchase $1 will go to No Kid Hungry, a charity devoted to helping make sure that children don’t go hungry by extending access to meals at school and after school, as well as providing education, advocacy, and research to reduce child nutritional deficits in the United States.
Lots of great ASoIaF designs. The Tywin Lannister “Half-dragon” design is particularly interesting, and the coin of the Faceless Men is particularly popular.
This month has had its joys and its sorrows, and we’re not even half way through. In the latter column, we must add the very sad news of the passing of Kay McCauley, long-time agent to George R.R. Martin and a host of other writers. George has posted a touching remembrance of the “queen of agents” who did so much to represent his work as part of, and then head, of the agency that her late brother Kirby McCauley founded.
George mentions in passing her parties for the Wild Cards authors, and indeed, it was at one of these—at the swanky Chateau Marmont, during the 2006 Worldcon in Anahiem where we signed the contracts for The World of Ice and Fire—that we first met her. She had negotiated the contract for the book, and had helped us out with various questions including who to talk to at Random House’s royalties department to sort out a problem, and advising us on other matters. She was extremely kind and welcoming to two neophytes such as ourselves, and over the years she always found the time to send a congratulations our way whenever Random House let us know of some new milestone with the book, whether a placement on a bestseller list or a new printing.
She will be much missed.
Over at his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has posted a new update on various topics, including HBO’s House of the Dragon as well as where he’s at with the greatly-anticipated The Winds of Winter. Along the way, he gives some hints about what he’s been working on on the “big, big book”:
“Of late I have been spending a lot of time with the Lannisters. Cersei and Tyrion in particular. I’ve also paid a visit to Dorne, and dropped in to Oldtown a time or three. In addition to turning out new chapters, I’ve been revising some old ones (some very old)… including, yes, some stuff I read at cons ages ago, or even posted online as samples. I tweak stuff constantly, and sometimes go beyond tweaking, moving things around, combining chapters, breaking chapters in two, reordering stuff.”
(The newly-released A Storm of Swords (affiliate link) anniversary edition, featuring new illustrations from Gary Gianni.)
A Song of Ice and Fire • George R.R. Martin • House of the Dragon | Comments:
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