Unfortunately, the conclusion of Game of Thrones was not universally beloved, and fans have been particularly brutal in their assessment of the series' final season, but that hasn't stopped HBO from diving back into George R.R. Martin's world. The network gave a straight-to-series order to House of the Dragon, a prequel series set 300 years before Game of Thrones which will be based upon George R.R. Martin's "Fire & Blood," a Targaryen history book which chronicles the history of House Targaryen, starting off with "Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and [going on] to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold the throne, all the way up to the civil war, known as the Dance of the Dragons, that nearly tore their dynasty apart." Now, when can we expect a return to Westeros?
While speaking with Deadline, HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys stated that House of the Dragon is on track for a debut in 2022, but said that it's too early to be more specific than that. "They are starting writing," Bloys said, adding that much like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon is shaping up to be a "big, complicated show." The series was one of several Game of Thrones projects which HBO was developing, but Bloys indicated that the other spinoffs are on hold.
For me for right now, I think getting House of the Dragon on the air will be the number one priority. There are no other blinking green lights or anything like that. Sometime down the road who knows, but there are no immediate plans. We are all focusing on House of the Dragon.
House of the Dragon isn't the first Game of Thrones prequel to move forward, as another series, set thousands of years before the main series and written by Jane Goldman, went to pilot but was not picked up. "In development, in pilots, sometimes things come together, some time they don’t. One of the things I think Jane took on beautifully, which was a challenge, there was a lot more role creation because she set hers 8,000 years before the (mothership) show, so it required a lot more," Bloys explained. "That is a big swing. One of the things about House of Dragons, there is a text, there is a book so that made it a little bit more of a road map for a series order. I think Jane did a beautiful job, it was a big challenge but there was nothing that I would point to and say, oh, that one element did not work, just overall it did not quite gel. That’s one of the reasons when we started out to think about ‘Is there a life after Game of Thrones in terms of Game of Thrones’, we purposefully developed multiple projects. We would have been very lucky to do one pilot, have that pilot go and be a success but in development as you know, it takes a lot of tries to get it right, this is no different." Are you excited for a return to Westeros? Or has the final season of Game of Thrones soured your enthusiasm?