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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Bumped to Early 2026

Despite initial aims to get this out this year, it seems like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has ultimately shifted entirely out of 2025, and will now be an early 2026 release according to a first look at a trailer for the show revealed to press and industry professionals at the WBD upfront.

Whether that trailer will also be released today or in the future, we do not know.

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Three New Characters Announced for House of the Dragon

HBO has announced three new cast members for House of the Dragon Season 3, each taking on important roles as knights caught up in the brutal Dance of the Dragons. I believe at least one of these has been hinted at previously, when Steve Toussaint posted an image of a script listing a number of characters who were present.

You can see the list of the actors and their characters below, as well as some additional thoughts from us!

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Barry Sloane, Tom Cullen, and Joplin Sibtain.

House of the Dragon Makeup Artist on His Career, Season 3

The latest episode of The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast, co-hosted by House of the Dragon show runner Ryan Condal and his friend and fellow prop collector David Mandel—whose credits include Seinfeld, Veep, and White House Plumbers—features prosthetics artist Waldo Mason, who joins them to discuss his career, creative process, and some behind-the-scenes teases from House of the Dragon Season 3 where he works as the lead makeup special effects artist.

Waldo Mason is a legendary figure in prosthetics, with a career spanning over thirty years. His work has brought creatures, wounds, and faces to life in films like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the Harry Potter series, Game of Thrones, and Rogue One. He’s also a worked on a number of Ridley Scott productions going back to Gladiator (he has some frank remarks to make about a certain star’s behavior on set at the time), as well as Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus.

In the episode, there’s a fun moment where Ryan hints there’s something in Season 3 he’d like to “liberate” for his own collection—prompting Waldo to laugh and ask, “Well, is it large?” Apparently not, but Ryan and he would confer about there maybe needing to be two of what object he was interested in. Waldo also shares that he was particularly eager to sculpt two specific heads this season. One didn’t appear in the initial brief, to his disappointment—but it sounds like it made it into the revised plan after all. See below for our guess, and beware spoilers drawn from Fire and Blood!

 

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Dire Wolfs Reborn and the GRRM Connection

A big splashy announcement of a recent advance by Colossal Biosciences, creators of the “wooly mouse”, with the revelation that they have essentially recreated the 10,000-years extinct dire wolf which once roamed North America. The first two are named Romulus and Remus, after the legendary founders of Rome who were nursed by a she-wolf, while their younger “sister” is named… Khaleesi.

But what really got our attention was the concurrent reporting from The Hollywood Reporter that not only explicitly links the wolves with the direwolves of Game of Thrones, but also reveals that none other than George R.R. Martin is an investor and adviser… and so, too, is Peter Jackson, who provided a certain prop for a photoshoot with Romulus and Remus that Game of Thrones fans may recognize…

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House of the Dragon Filming Starts, Casting Announced

House of the Dragon‘s third season officially kicked off a few days ago, and HBO wanted to make sure everyone knew it by having star Emma d’Arcy make the announcement in a video:

There’s quite a bit more news besides that, however, as some new castings have been revealed… and a new interview with show runner and co-creator Ryan Condal responds to some questions from EW about the season to come… and gives his version of the situation that stirred a great deal of controversy preceding it.

As far as the casting goes, two northerners have been announced: Dan Fogler will play Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Tommy Flanagan will play

“Ser” Lord Roderick Dustin. Better known as Roddy the Ruin to fans, in Fire and Blood he’s the Lord of Barrowton and is almost certainly not a knight who follows the Seven, but for whatever reason this press release claims he is; we’ve reached out to clarify, as errors about these sorts of titles have happened in the past.

[Edit: Ryan Condal has since confirmed to us that Roderick is a lord on the show, not a knight.]

See the full press release that came with the announcement, and list of returning cast members as well as confirmed new ones, below!

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Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Pre-registration

NetMarble has announced the beginning of pre-registration for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, they’re upcoming free-to-play mobile and PC action RPG set during the 4th season of Game of Thrones. Pre-registration begins today through to the game’s release, currently planned for the 2nd quarter of this year.

See below for the full details regarding pre-registration, and follow this link to pre-register today!

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Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Under $10 Million per Episode

Via The Hollywood Reporter, a wide-ranging interview with HBO’s Head of Drama, Francesca Orsi, touched on the budget of the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. To quote her in the piece:

As much as there was a day of budgets being a bit more robust and now, while they continue to be for a number of shows, there are some shows that we’re being charged with making for far less. I have an example that really took me aback. We’re doing a Game of Throne spinoff titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for under $10 million in episode, [which is peanuts] relative to what Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon cost episodically. And the battle sequences that the directors achieved match those across Game of Thrones and are a fraction of the price, so it’s a lesson for us that we need to be challenging these budgets.

Obviously, the story it adapts takes place basically in one location, and features a tourney rather than actual battles, so that’s part of it. But it also sounds like part of the appeal of adapting “The Hedge Knight” was its smaller scale that meant it could be done at a lower budget.

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House of the Dragon Cast and Producers Talk Season 3

At a recent Emmys FYC (“For Your Consideration” event), House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, executive producer Sara Hess, and a bevy of key cast members teased a number of details about the in-production Season 3, which as yet does not have a release date (though it’ll certainly be sometime in 2026). Noting that cameras haven’t quite started rolling—on The Stuff Dreams Are MAde Of podcast, recorded a week or two so earlier, he noted he was in Wales for final location scouting—the showrunner revealed that writing was basically done on the season. Condal and company hinted that this season will cover four major events described in Fire and Blood, GRRM’s account on which the show is based, and that there would be some new faces in the cast but that most of the significant characters had already been introduced.

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Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Demo during Steam Next Fest

Netmarble has announced that their forthcoming Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is Coming to Steam Next Fest, with a demo that will be available to be downloaded and played on PC from February 24th at 8:00AM through to March 3rd (PST). The game is developed for iOS and Android as well, but no word whether similar demos will be available for those platforms.

They are encouraging users to visit the Steam page for the game and add it to their wishlist, with goal tiers for total wishlistings releasing special items and perks to those who play the demo:

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In the Lost Lands Trailer

A trailer has been released for In the Lost Lands, a fantasy film based on a short story of the same name by George R.R. Martin. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil), it stars Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element) and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) as the characters Gray Alys and Boyce, who in the film join forces to seek a powerful magical object in a post-apocalyptic, Western-inflected place called the Lost Lands. You can see the trailer below:

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House of the Dragon Costume Auctioned for Charity

On the heels of Heritage’s record-breaking Game of Thrones auction, there’s now a first for House of the Dragon as the production and HBO have donated a Daemon Targaryen costume from season 1, episode 6—worn by Matt Smith in the scenes where Daemon and Laena fly their dragons above Pentos—to be auctioned off at Propstore as part of the Costume Designers Guild Awards’
contribution to that IATSE Emergency Relief Fund’s auction following the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. It is a screen-matched costume and, from what I can tell, complete including gloves, boots, and belts, all resplendent with hand-stitched embroidery.

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House of the Dragon, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and More

Deadline has a detailed report concerning everything said in a recent interview by HBO’s Head of Drama Series & Films, Francesca Orsi, regarding the Game of Thrones franchise. Besides the usual update on House of the Dragon and its massive opening for season 3 (cameras start rolling in March, according to reports), Orsi reveals that HBO’s so bullish on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that if they renew it they may well order two seasons to be filmed back-to-back.

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James Norton Joins House of the Dragon

Variety offers an exclusive piece of news, that English actor James Norton has been cast as Ormund Hightower, the Lord of Oldtown, for the third season of House of the Dragon. He’s not a stranger to period and genre films, as he played one of the leads in the BBC’s 2016 adaptation of War and Peace, and played a rather fun role in the HBO sf-tinged series The Nevers. Still to be seen is his role as Harold Godwinson in the upcoming King and Conqueror, which puts him across from Game of Thrones‘alumnus Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who is playing William the Conqueror.

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Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Gameplay Trailer and Closed Beta

Last month, we reported on the reveal of Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, an action RPG based on the TV series developed by South Korean publisher Netmarble. They have now released a short gameplay trailer, ahead of an upcoming closed beta test in the US, UK, and parts of the EU from January 16th to January 22nd. Interestingly, the trailer and the beta test both confirm that initial reports that the game was mobile-only, it will also support Windows computers.

For those interested in signing up for the closed beta, you can sign up at the official site for the game. Registration ends on January 12th.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Mobile RPG Announced

During this year’s Game Awards, where many upcoming and often highly anticipated games announce themselves and reveal launch trailers, among the cinematics for the likes of The Witcher 4 or gameplay trailers for games likeElden Ring: Nightreign or The Outer Worlds 2, Warner Bros. and South Korean developer Netmarble unveiled a brand new trailer for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, a mobile-only open world action RPG that starts during the fourth season of HBO’s award-winning Game of Thrones. Although it had officially unveiled at South Korea’s G-Star trade exhibition last month, it seemed to make few waves outside of the Asian press, so for many fans this is the first time they’ve heard of it.

See the new trailer, which features appearances by numerous familiar characters like Jon Snow, Varys, and Jaime Lannister:

The previous trailer, and some additional thoughts based on what we’ve seen, below!

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