Thoughts on the Game of Thrones Franchise’s Future

It’s no secret that HBO would love more Game of Thrones. The show attracted a record viewership for HBO and had a broad international appeal. Game of Thrones received 58 Emmy Awards, the most by a drama series, including Outstanding Drama Series.

With HBO looking to be competitive in the Streaming Wars, they need every advantage they can get which is why we’ll be getting more Game of Thrones in our future.  

Before I jump into that, it was interesting to read that Game of Thrones series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will not connected to a new Star Wars trilogy as originally announced. Deadline reported that the duo withdrew from working with Lucasfilm due to a full schedule. 

Which sounds a bit…fishy…if you ask me. 

“We love Star Wars,” the two told Deadline. “When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything … There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away.”

I get having a full schedule but this is Star Wars. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that you can’t get much bigger than this universe to create in. I understand they have other projects but what could possibly be more epic spanning than Star Wars? 

But I digress so let’s get back to the main point. Game of Thrones.

HBO gave a series order to one of its Game of Thrones prequels while passing on another. House of the Dragon received a 10-episode order. The show is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood series, which is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen. “The Game of Thrones universe is so rich with stories,” says 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.”

In a bit of a surprise, HBO passed on the other prequel, which would have starred Naomi Watts and was written by Jane Goldman. That series was set thousands of years before the events of the original series. No official word but rumors said the pilot didn’t work as well as they wanted and the show would be too expensive to put into play while trying to fix the issues. 

George R.R. Martin posted an update on his blog that co-showrunner and writer Ryan Condal “has already done a considerable amount of writing on House of the Dragon, but a lot of work remains ahead of us. There’s a writer’s room to be assembled, episodes to be broken down and scripted, a cast and crew to be assembled, budgets and production details to be worked out. As yet, we don’t even know where we will be shooting… though I expect we will revisit at least some of the countries David & Dan used for Game of Thrones (Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Croatia, Morocco, Malta, and Spain). I expect to be involved in all of this to some extent… and, who knows, if things work out, I may even be able to script a few episodes, as I did for the first four seasons of Game of Thrones.”

Fans of the novel shouldn’t fear too much though. Martin did say that “I am not taking on any scripts until I have finished and delivered Winds of Winter. Winter is still coming, and Winds remains my priority, as much as I’d love to write an episodes of House.”

How do you feel about the future of the franchise and do you believe Martin will ever finish his book series?