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Here's Why Game of Thrones Spin-Off House of the Dragon Was Chosen Over the Others

The logo for House of the Dragon, the new HBO Game of Thrones show.
The logo for House of the Dragon, the new HBO Game of Thrones show.
Photo: HBO

Fans waiting for the first Game of Thrones spin-off show have lots more waiting to do. HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys said today that the House Targaryen prequel, House of the Dragon, probably won’t arrive until 2022. Bloys also explained why that story, and not the Jane Goldman-penned prequel starring Naomi Watts, was chosen to move to series.

“In development, in pilots, sometimes things come together, sometimes they don’t,” he told Deadline. “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 [original] show, so it required a lot more. 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.”

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The George R.R. Martin book Bloys refers to is Fire and Blood, which was published in 2018, and will be the main inspiration for the new show. It seems the network is more confident in a team that has a blueprint to go by rather than a creator who tries something new and fresh set 8,000 years in Game of Thrones’ past.

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“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,” Bloys continued. “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.”

Speaking of those other projects, Bloys confirmed that while there once were other shows in development, they are currently all off the table until House of the Dragon gets off the ground.

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“For me for right now, I think getting House of the Dragon on the air will be the number one priority,” Bloys said. “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.”

Hence the 2022 estimated premiere date. Scripts are still being written and when that’s done, casting can begin, sets can be built, and then filming has to take place. It’s all still just a dragon egg, ready to become something more.

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