Westeros

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

Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has written about having watched Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai, a Western animated story of revenge set in Edo Japan. We ourselves suggested fans should check it out shortly after its release when he binged it (over three days, as well, just like GRRM and Parris), suggesting that its adult nature, its bloody action, and its plotting would appeal to fans of A Song of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones:

So, a good call from George. But he goes on past praising Blue Eye Samurai to discuss the state of possible animated successors to Game of Thrones... including the big news that the formerly-live Nine Voyages is being retooled as a possible animated series.

Among the podcasts I listen to on a weekly basis is the prop collecting-focused “The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of”, in part (but only in part!) because one of its hosts is House of the Dragon show runner and co-creator Ryan Condal (the other co-host? David Mandel, of Seinfeld and Veep fame whose White House Plumbers recently completed its run on HBO). Their areas of interest when it comes to collecting are very similar to what I—and I suspect many fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, and House of the Dragon—consider pretty central parts of my favorite cinema: big genre works of the late 70s and through the 80s like Conan the Barbarian, Alien and Aliens, Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, and (of course) Star Wars.

Their latest episode (embedded below) features a semi-regular feature of the podcast, where Condal and Mandel discuss an upcoming props auction and go through its catalog together, discussing bits of information they know about a piece or similar ones, speculating on whether the expected sale price is on the mark or too high/low, and whether they’ll be pursuing any particular items themselves. But color me surprised when they mentioned that Propstore’s upcoming Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction from June 28 to June 30th included two lots of scripts from Game of Thrones, apparently from Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger). I decided to examine what information Propstore provided about them, and discovered some fun details regarding scripts that Gillen had personally annotated.

Creation Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced details on this year’s Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from December 9th through December 11th, including the fact that they’ve added House of the Dragons performers to the extensive line-up of guests, plus a special “virtual appearance” by Ryan Condal, lead writer and show runner of the hit HBO show. Read the full press release below!

Paddy Considine will be one of the guests at the convention, alongside Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) and Matthew Needham (Larys Strong)

The official Youtube page for the Game of Thrones Studio Tour at the Linen Mill Studio in Northern Ireland— exclusive home to an enormous assortment of props, weapons, armor, costumes, and even whole sets from the TV show—has released a lengthy video where the show’s weapons master, Tommy Dunne, speaks at length about his work on the show as it relates specifically to the infamous catspaw dagger that has now become so central to House of the Dragon. See below for the video!

The original catspaw dagger as seen on Game of Thrones. The new version is closely based on it, but its proportions have been tweaked for House of the Dragon.

We’re back to discuss the third episode of House of the Dragon, titled “Second of His Name”. As usual, we discuss some changes from the source material, provide some additional background information for things touched on only lightly in the episode, and finally some dragon facts (quite brief ones, in this case!)

A press release touting all the new programs and films coming to HBO Max in August had a very interesting announcement:

We think this may be the first original series to get the 4K HDR treatment straight out of the gate on HBO/HBO Max.

The last few days have been jam-packed with House of the Dragon information, all of it leading to the big panel a San Diego Comic-Con, and the August 21st premiere of the show beyond that. The latest? A video from HBO giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the show in production, with brief comments from show runners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, and creator George R.R. Martin:

But what really kicked it of was Entertainment Weekly and its exclusive article from Nick Romano, who visited the sit and spoke extensively with the cast and crew of the show. Since that initial release, EW has been releasing more articles and photos on a daily basis, again leading up to the big SDCC premiere.

At “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin goes into some detail—as far as he’s able—as he confirms the news that a Jon Snow series is in development under the working title of Snow. In the process, he confirms that Kit Harington is the originator of the series (as revealed by Emilia Clarke in a recent BBC profile), that he and his own team of writers and consultants are working with Harington’s team, and that the project has actually been in development nearly as long as projects that we learned about last year rather than being a very new development.

There’s also some Winds of Winter information, as George notes that he was recently “back with Tyrion,” and GRRM also discusses his recent (misconstrued) remarks on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power as well as continuing work on short films based on the works of the great Howard Waldrop.

Via James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporter, we’ve learned that Kit Harington is attached to star in Jon Snow spin-off series set after the end of Game of Thrones. Suffice it to say, the new has sent shockwaves through fandom, casual and hardcore alike. For our part, it doesn’t seem all that surprising, for the reasons laid out in Deadline‘s confirmation.

First announced in 2019, the Game of Thrones Studio Tour in Banbridge, Northern Ireland has now officially opened its doors. The opening ceremony was attended by a number of actors from the series, including Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Natalie Emmanuel (Missandei), and Isaac Hampstead Wright (Bran Stark).

See below for the press release and additional images!

Kristian Nairn (“Hodor”), Nathalie Emmanuel (“Missandei”) and Isaac Hempstead Wright (“Bran Stark”) help to ‘Break the Chains’ for the brand-new Game of Thrones Studio Tour located in Northern Ireland.

Photo courtesy of Game of Thrones Studio Tour

Brian Cox, star of Succession and many, many other films and television programs over the years, has revealed his near-brush with Game of Thrones in GQ, where an excerpt of his new memoir—titled Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Amazon affiliate link)—discusses his views on the monetary side of the acting business, and the sheer chance by which some programs become global hits and others fall flat. In the course of the excerpt, Cox writes that he’s often asked if he was ever offered a role in Game of Thrones:

Last month, the first ever official Game of Thrones convention was announced by WB Themed Entertainment and Creation Entertainment. Now they’ve followed up with an announcement of the first set of actors who will appear at the convention:

The event will take place from February 18th through the 20th at the Rio Hotel & Suites Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Select tickets are now already available for purchase, and more announcements of further talent to come.

Full press release below!

Creation Entertainment and Warner Bros. Themed Entertainment have announced an official Game of Thrones fan convention to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio Hotel & Suites Convention Center on February 18-20, 2022. This is the first ever official convention for the show, and promises to have many guests, panels, and events, as well as merchandise for sale.

We’ve placed the full press release below:

James Hibberd has another scoop, reporting that HBO Max has ended development of the previously reported series focused on Flea Bottom. But it also is developing two new animated projects to join a previusly announced animated show, and one of them is based on Yi Ti, an ancient and high civilization far to the east of the Seven Kingdoms that is inspired by Chinese history and culture. The World of Ice and Fire is the source of much of what we know of Yi Ti, including its people and their descent from the Great Empire of the Dawn who may have had a role in the Long Night.

Artist’s conception of the imperial capital, Yin.