George R. R. Martin has admitted that he was surprised at how many Game of Thrones spinoffs HBO once had planned. Game of Thrones has solidified itself as one of TV's most successful and celebrated shows, breaking a multitude of records, sweeping award ceremonies and helping to make household names out of series stars Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage and Kit Harington. Based on Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire, the show boasted multiple major story arcs over its eight season run, none bigger than the battle over who would sit on the Iron Throne. Despite a final season that split more than a few opinions, Game of Thrones has proven a pop-culture phenomenon worldwide, encouraging HBO to create multiple spinoffs, including the upcoming House of the Dragon.
House of the Dragon, set some two hundred years before Game of Thrones, will star former Doctor Who Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen, the ruthless, dragon-riding Prince of the Targaryen family. The show will follow Martin's novel Fire & Blood, detailing a bloody civil war during a period where the Targaryen's power in Westeros was unmatched. Alongside Smith, House of the Dragon's stellar cast includes Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy and Rhys Ifans. While Smith has promised the show won't copy Game of Thrones, the House of the Dragon trailer packs all the things Thrones fans have grown to love, from heated battles to tense drama and, perhaps most importantly, plenty of dragons.
While House of the Dragon is definitely happening, Martin has talked about just how many spinoffs were once planned for Game of Thrones. As reported by Indiewire, during an interview for the book Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, the Game Of Thrones author has admitted that he was surprised to learn just how many spinoffs were, at one time, in the works. While Martin was aware of two series ideas, he described how he “suddenly found out that they had put four prequels in motion” with four different writers. Martin went on to confirm that, at one point, he "met with all four of the writers”, to workshop ideas. Elaborating on what the four series were about, Martin said that one was House of the Dragon (then titled Dance of the Dragons) and one other was Dunk and Egg, which is currently still in active production. Read Martin's comments, below:
"I suddenly found out that they had put four prequels in motion. The ‘Dance of the Dragons’ idea was just one of them. And the other three were ideas that had come from other people who I guess had read my books or had some of the documents at HBO. They didn’t like the ‘Dunk and Egg’ idea because they were familiar with the novellas — somebody there had read them — but it was too soft, but they did respond to the ‘Dance of the Dragons’ idea. It surprised me, I’ll admit that. I’d never heard of that before. I thought we’d be going ahead with one, with one development, with the one that I pitched to them, the ‘Dance of the Dragons’ idea. I met with all four of the writers. They came to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I lived, and I had meetings with them, discussed their idea, did workshops, tried to fill them in on any questions and all that.”
HBO clearly moved fast to fill their production pipeline with future Game of Thrones content, especially if it came as news to Martin. While at one point, more Westeros content was a shoo-in success for HBO, the rushed ending to Game of Thrones season 8 created reservations on how successful future adaptions will be. It's also worrying that HBO spent a whopping $30 million on another Game of Thrones prequel, only to then cancel it. The network clearly wants to move forward with as many adaptions of Martin's work as possible, but it's unclear if they know quite how they want these adaptions to look. Martin himself wanted more seasons of Game of Thrones to properly finish his vision, so HBO's choice to push spinoffs and sequels is a decision that feels less thought out than Martin would have hoped.
One of the problems with the final few seasons of Game of Thrones is that the writers ran out of source material. Even now, Martin is reluctant to give a release date for The Winds of Winter, the next book in the series, despite working on the novel for years. HBO, however, have no excuses with House of the Dragon, as writers are working from a completed source material, with some of the richest lore any franchise could offer to make the series a compelling and exciting watch. Despite Dunk and Egg recently finding a writer, House of the Dragon, for better or for worse, remains the only Game of Thrones spinoff guaranteed to see the light of day, thanks to HBO's pattern of indecisiveness. House of the Dragon's success will be measured when its 10-episode season arrives next year.
Source: Indiewire
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