Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
News
The Writer’s Guild of America has begun a strike, which means members of the guild will not be writing for any productions they’re working on. There’s a lot of questions about just what this means for many productions, questions that Variety has tried to answer with its FAQ. But fans of House of the Dragon have worried about the show being delayed because of the strike, and as it happens, Variety has an answer for that question as well.
Per Variety, all the scripts for the season have been finished ahead of time, and production will continue. So, good news! However, as some may realize, most scripts are not completely done and in final form when a show is produced. There’s often talk of rewrites and the need to ADR (“Automated Dialogue Replacement”) to insert new dialogue or change existing dialogue. As Variety notes, it’s unclear just how that aspect of things will work for programs already in production. Will they take different footage from different angles to give them more wiggle-room to add entirely new dialog when a character’s mouth can’t be seen? Will they employ some of the new tech out there to simply dynamically change a character’s lips to the words they’re saying? We live in fascinating times, as it were.
Now that production is in full swing, casting news for the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon was sure to be around the corner… and today we get the first tranche of new actors and roles for the show, courtesy of Variety. All four are characters from the original source material, described in George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood:
- Gayle Rankin will play Alys Rivers, “a healer and resident of Harrenhal”. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire.
- Multiple Olivier and Tony Award-winning actor Simon Russell Beale plays Ser Simon Strong, castellan of Harrenhal. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire
- Freddie Fox plays Ser Gwayne Hightower, son of Otto Hightower and brother to Queen Alicent. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire. Fans will remember that Gwayne rode against Prince Daemon at the tournament in the first episode, but that was a stunt actor who wore a helm throughout.
- Abubakar Salim will play Alyn of Hull, described as “a sailor in the Velaryon fleet” who participated in the Stepstones campaign. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire
To mark the occasion of the official start of production of House of the Dragon, HBO has put out a press release with the announcement, a remark from showrunner and lead writer Ryan Condal, and some other notes, plus a nice behind-the-scenes shot of the Iron Throne:
Production has commenced on the second season of HBO Original drama series House of the Dragon at Leavesden Studios in the United Kingdom.
Logline: Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the series, set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen.
Ryan Condal, Co-Creator/Showrunner/Executive Producer, quote: “House of the Dragon has returned. We are thrilled to be shooting again with members of our original family as well as new talents on both sides of the camera. All your favorite characters will soon be conspiring at the council tables, marching with their armies, and riding their dragons into battle. We can’t wait to share what we have in store.”
Some significant House of the Dragon news reported by Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva, who has received word (and confirmed some parts of it with HBO) that for “story-driven” reasons the plan of a 10 episode 2nd season has been changed to an 8 episode 2nd season, which has necessitated some re-writing and likely has contributed to the slight delays to the planned commencement of filming (however, production is imminent and the prospective air date remains summer 2024). Per Andreeva’s report:
“It has been reported that House of the Dragon‘s creative team had envisioned the series running for three or four seasons. I hear executive producer-showrunner Ryan Condal, working with author/executive producer George R.R. Martin, took a step back as Season 2 was being put together to take a big-picture view of the series, which follows Martin’s Fire & Blood, and figure out the overall narrative flow, including how to break up the stories season-to-season and what battles to include and when.”
Interestingly, Andreeva notes that even with the reduction of two episodes, Condal and GRRM are still discussing whether three or four seasons work better. Her piece goes into some more detail about just what was moved out of the 2nd season for the prospective 3rd season, which we’ll quote below and speculate on a bit.
Variety has a report drawn from a longer profile of HBO and HBO Max content CEO Casey Bloys. In it, Bloys suggests that summer 2024 is a good guess for when the second season of House of the Dragon would air. Like the season before it, this second season is due to start in March, and as we know from that first season it wasn’t until August of the following year that the season premiered, so this seems in line with expectations.
Bloys also goes on to make comments on more Game of Thrones spin-offs:
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)
As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men… but at last we finished our promised season 1 overview/discussion of House of the Dragon, which you can see here:
We’ve some other odds and ends to discuss, such as an extra video we did discussing the finale after Elio’s return from Spain, and a podcast Elio recorded for the Boiled Leather Audio Hour podcast, details about which you can find below!
Arrax approaching Storm’s End.
The final episode of the first season of House of the Dragon is done, and we’re (actually, just Linda initially, but we’ll have more videos in the days to come) back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:
And that concludes the first season of House of the Dragon! The Dance has truly begun.
Rhaenyra by the Painted Table, lit by fire from below.
The penultimate episode of the first season of House of the Dragon is done, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:
Next up will be “The Black Queen” to conclude the first season of House of the Dragon.
The Green Council, as Otto and Alicent Hightower inform the councillors of the king’s death while Ser Criston Cole watches.
Another episode down, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:
We’re in the home stretch now, with just two episodes to go. Next up will be “The Green Council”, followed up by “The Black Queen” to conclude the first season of House of the Dragon.
King Viserys on the Iron Throne.
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.
Another episode down, and we’re back with some thoughts, background, commentary on changes, and more in our latest video at the Westeros.org Youtube channel:
The next episode will give us what we believe will be a last time jump this season (and perhaps for all the show from here on out), aging up the children a bit further.
Lord Corlys Velaryon and Princess Rhaenys with their granddaughters Baela and Rhaena. Copyright Ollie Upton/HBO
An interview long in the making, we finally got to sit down with Ryan Condal, lead writer, executive producer, and now sole show runner of House of the Dragon last week to talk about the show. After Linda had a chance to say hello then headed off to keep an eye on our very rambunctious puppy Lancelot, we started the interview.
We open up with a question on post-production, and then get into the weeds on favorite book characters, depictions of violence, heraldry, a forgotten Valyrian house, the change from book canon when casting the Velaryons, whether Ryan will continue with the show after completing this particular story, and more.
Click here for the interview!
Ryan Condal behind the scenes with a maquette of Caraxes. ©️ Ollie Upton/HBO
Half way through the season, and “The Princess and the Queen” makes the boldest jump yet as a decade has passed since the previous episode, new actors play key roles, and a passel of new young characters appear. Linda and I return with with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. Lots of background in this particular episode:
Ser Laenor supports Princess Rhaenyra as she’s called to present the newborn Prince Joffrey to the queen.
The very eventful “We Light the Way” has aired globally, and we’re back with our usual non-review focus on providing some more background information and changes from the source material to the screen. We even have some dragon facts!
If you enjoyed the video, please do consider liking and subscribing, and feel free to comment with your own thoughts or questions!
Alicent Hightower embodying her house’s signal for war by wearing a green gown.