HBO Hands Series Order To ‘Game of Thrones’ Targaryen Prequel ‘House of the Dragon’
When HBO takes away with one hand, it gives with the other. Just hours after it was revealed that Jane Goldman’s ‘Game Of Thrones’ prequel would not be moving forward, HBO has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to ‘House of the Dragon‘, the Targaryen-led prequel series created by George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal.
Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the series, which is set 300 years before the events of ‘Game of Thrones’, tells the story of House Targaryen.
Legendary GoT ‘Battle of the Bastards’ director Miguel Sapochnik will join Ryan Condal as co-showrunners and the duo will serve as exec producers alongside George R.R. Martin and Vince Gerardis. Sapochnik will direct the pilot and additional episodes with Condal writing the drama.
“The ‘Game of Thrones’ universe is so rich with stories,” commented Casey Bloys, president, HBO programming. “We look forward to exploring the origins of House Targaryen and the earlier days of Westeros along with Miguel, Ryan and George.”
For those of you that need some help with your GoT history, the series looks to take place around the time of the “War of Conquest”, when Aegon Targaryen, alongside his sister-wives Rhaenys and Visenya, used three great dragons: Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar, to conquer Westeros, set King’s Landing as the capital, forge of the Iron Throne, and pretty much set up the backdrop of ‘Game Of Thrones’ as we know it… until Robert’s Rebellion against the “Mad King” 300yrs later. The series would be based around the book ‘Fire & Blood’, which begins with Aegon the Conqueror, and includes the “Dance of the Dragons”, which was the civil war between Aegon II and his half-sister Rhaenyra over their father Viserys I’s throne.
Miguel Sapochnik won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series as well as the DGA Award for the ‘Game of Thrones’ episode, ‘Battle of The Bastards’. He was nominated for another Emmy in 2019 for directing the ‘Game of Thrones’ episode, ‘The Long Night’ and won the Emmy for Best Drama Series as an Executive Producer for the final season. In total, Sapochnik has directed six episodes of ‘Game of Thrones,’ including ‘Hardhome’ and ‘Winds of Winter,’ in addition to the episodes previously noted. He also directed the film, ‘Bios’ for Amblin Studios starring Tom Hanks which debuts in the fall of 2020. Previously, Sapochnik directed episodes of ‘True Detective’ for HBO and ‘Banshee’ for Cinemax. ‘House of the Dragon’ marks Sapochnik’s first project as part of an HBO overall deal where he will develop and produce content for both HBO and HBO Max.
Ryan Condal was the co-creator and showrunner of ‘Colony’ for three seasons. He was the writer of MGM’s ‘Hercules’ and is currently adapting the graphic novel Analog as a feature for Lionsgate.
As announced earlier today, Sky has just renewed their deal to keep HBO content on Sky Atlantic in the UK, so expect ‘House of the Dragon‘ to appear there when it is released.
