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Thoughts on HBO’s Plans For More Game of Thrones Prequels

March 22, 2021 | Posted by Steve Gustafson
Game of Thrones Image Credit: HBO

Remember HBO’s Game of Thrones? The massively popular television show based on the massively popular book series by George R. R. Martin that was the talk of social media for years before its disastrous final season. After which it almost ceased to exist as little to no mention of it was made. 

It’s a curious piece of pop culture that can be studied and showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss are cautionary examples of the fickle nature of Hollywood. 

But that’s a column for another time. It looks like HBO is ready to go back to the well and has more Game of Thrones prequels in the works with the service developing three more projects. The network has a trio of additional ideas in the works based on author Martin’s fantasy world, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

One of the projects, working title 9 Voyages, is from Rome creator Bruno Heller and follows Lord Corlys Velaryon, aka The Sea Snake, the Lord of the Tides and head of House Velaryon. The character also appears in the upcoming greenlit Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, where he’s played by actor Steve Toussaint. This is interesting as we are looking at a potential spinoff for a character that’s appearing in a series that hasn’t even been filmed yet.  

The second project has the working title 10,000 Ships, and revolves around the warrior queen Princess Nymeria, a revered ancestor of House Martell who founded the kingdom of Dorne and became so legendary that two characters bore her name in the original series (Sand Snake Nymeria Sand and Arya’s direwolf). Her story takes place around 1,000 years before the events in Game of Thrones. 

The third project is set in the King’s Landing slum of Flea Bottom, the maze of tight streets in the capitol city where characters like Davos Seaworth and Gendry Baratheon were born.

Even with a dip in popularity, these prequels join the upcoming greenlit series House of the Dragon, which begins filming in the U.K. in April and stars Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Paddy Considine and Matt Smith. The series follows the story of House Targaryen 300 years before the events in GoT and builds to the civil war that tore Westeros apart. The series is from co-showrunners Miguel Saapochnik and Ryan Condal and is expected to premiere in 2022.

HBO has yet another project that’s in development and is based on Martin’s popular Dunk and Egg novellas, which follow the adventures of the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg, who would later become King Aegon V Targaryen. 

Wait. There’s more! We also have an animated Thrones project being considered but details are scarce on its content. 

HBO is focusing on bringing back the popularity of its long time anchor show, especially with a crowded field of streaming channels to contend with. “The way we try to approach it is not by [saying], ‘We need five shows within three years,’ but ‘What are the stories worth telling?'” HBO’s chief content officer Casey Bloys told THR in January. “We’ve been developing multiple takes on different worlds. The one I want to do is the one that I think is best creatively. I prefer to make it about the stories and the showrunners and their vision as opposed to hitting some arbitrary target for the right number of shows.”

It’s unfortunate Game of Thrones ended in the manner it did. There was still plenty of story and pacing left for another season thanks to the rich world Martin created. I do feel hesitant to attach to all the different projects they are juggling as audiences will most likely focus on just one instead of 4. Better to put out a strong, quality program than pump out several that are…pretty OK. Just as a rising tide raises all the ships, too many chefs ruin the soup and that might be the case for GoT and its future in television. 
What do you think?

article topics :

Game of Thrones, HBO, Steve Gustafson