Every 'Game of Thrones' Spinoff Reported So Far
There are some really exciting things on the horizon for Westeros, and some really promising projects already shelved.
'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight'
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is the latest spinoff to get an official green light. Aside from A Song of Ice and Fire itself, the best-known story set in Westeros is likely Martin's novella series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, more commonly known among fans as "The Tales of Dunk and Egg." These short, one-perspective books follow the humble hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and the disguised Targaryen youth Aegon V — who goes by "Egg" for short — as they travel the country doing chivalrous deeds. These stories are set about 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
Back in January of 2021, Variety reported that a series adaptation of these novellas was in the works, and in April of 2023 HBO announced that the show was officially greenlit. In a blog post, Martin added the show will most likely consist of six episodes per season, and HBO later confirmed that plan. Writer and producer Ira Parker is the showrunner. Dunk will be played by Peter Claffey, and Egg will be played by Dexter Sol Ansell. The show is filming now, and is slated for release in 2025.
Martin has published three novellas in this series – The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight – which have been collected into one volume called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. He has often discussed writing more novellas to finish Dunk and Egg's story – in fact, when Variety first reported that an adaptation of this series was in development, some fans had their doubts. That's because in a 2017 blog post, Martin said that he wanted to write more "Dunk & Egg" novellas and that he did not want the series adapted until it was finished due to the controversy surrounding Game of Thrones.
To many fans, this is bad news for the prospects of Martin finishing the last two books in A Song of Ice and Fire. For one thing, fans speculate that he will now want to finish the Dunk & Egg novella series quickly so that the TV show won't get ahead of it. For another, fans expect the story of Dunk & Egg to connect to and seriously impact the events of A Song of Ice and Fire. That's because the novellas are leading towards a mystery that Martin is protective of — the "Tragedy at Summerhall." They may also provide more details on the mysterious figure Bloodraven, who goes from a political player in King's Landing in Dunk & Egg to the half-dead Greenseer that teaches Bran Stark to use his powers beyond The Wall in the main series.
'House of the Dragon'
House of the Dragon premiered in the summer of 2022, and Season 2 is airing now on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max. It is based on Martin's latest book, Fire and Blood, which is a fictional history of the Targaryen dynasty in Westeros. The book covers about 130 years' worth of history in the Seven Kingdoms, but the show focuses on a period of time about 180 years before the events of Game of Thrones. At this time, there is a civil war within House Targaryen called "The Dance of the Dragons."
This subject makes perfect sense for HBO, as it will be even more action-heavy than the original series. "The Dance of the Dragons" pitted more than a dozen dragons and their riders against each other in an all-out war. This series may serve as the lynchpin around which other, more experimental series can orbit. The show has already been greenlit for a third season.
Jon Snow Sequel
The spinoff that has gotten the most coverage over the last few years is the sequel series about Jon Snow living beyond The Wall after the events of Game of Thrones, with the working title SNOW. The project was first reported by news outlets in June of 2022 and then quickly confirmed by HBO and Martin. According to The Hollywood Reporter, actor Kit Harington pitched the idea to HBO himself along with a team of writers and producers. Harington would have reprised his role as Jon Snow if the show had been ordered.
Back in January of 2023, Martin made a blog post where he mentioned that some of the spinoffs in development have been "shelved," though he didn't say which ones. That was the first sign of bad news for SNOW, and it means all the shows below on this list may no longer be on the table either.
As for SNOW, King Harington confirmed that the show has been canceled back in April. He told Screen Rant: "Currently, it's off the table, because we all couldn't find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough. So, we decided to lay down tools with it for the time being. There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It's firmly on the shelf."
'The Sea Snake'
The next most-developed project so far is a series about Corlys "The Sea Snake" Velaryon, which originally had the working title 9 Voyages but has now been changed to The Sea Snake, according to Martin. Corlys is one of the main characters in House of the Dragon – played by Steven Toussaint – but Martin has documented his whole life in Fire and Blood and The World of Ice and Fire. He is an enigmatic figure who sailed all over the world in his life on his "nine great voyages."
This show would depict earlier adventures in Corlys' life, shedding light on how he became such a legendary figure in Westeros. It would also allow Martin and the show's creators to further expand this fictional world beyond Westeros' shores, and perhaps make some revelations about the far-flung lands where legends like Azor Ahai come from.
This series originally in development by writer Bruno Heller (The Mentalist, Rome and Gotham) and a small creative team, but back in January, Martin revealed that that version did not work out. He wrote that they are now developing this idea as an animated series, noting: "Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to... well, on and on and on. There's a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation. So we now have three animated projects underway."
'Ten Thousand Ships'
Ten Thousand Ships is the working title for a prequel going even further back in Westerosi history to the mass immigration of the Rhoynar to Dorne. In Martin's history, The Rhoynar are an ancient civilization that rival the magical power and advancement of the Valyrian dragon riders. They lived along the massive river called The Rhoyne in Essos, however, when Daenerys' ancestors the Valyrian Freehold began to encroach on their land, the Rhoynish Queen Nymeria ordered all of her people onto all 10,000 of her ships and led them on a mass exodus to look for a new home.
It is unclear when exactly this legendary migration happened. Martin's in-world historians guess that it was about 1,000 years before the events of the main series, and we do know that the Doom of Valyria happened about 500 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Regardless, this series might shed light on the legends of Rhoynish water magic, and the mysterious Dornish culture in the southern desert of Westeros.
This show has taken fans on an emotional roller coaster, seeming to be canceled at one point only to pop back up again. The first. version was developed by writer Amanda Segel, and Martin spoke highly of her work on his blog at the time. However, just last week Martin revealed that the show has been completely overhauled, and is now being helmed by playwright Eboni Booth.
"We're all very excited about this one," Martin wrote, "though we're still trying to figure out how we're going to pay for ten thousand ships, three hundred dragons, and those giant turtles." This show is in development, and some fans are weary, fearing it is too obscure to get a green light.
Aegon's Conquest
[NO SPOILERS] Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys. The conquerors.
by u/elliottdzierzanowski in gameofthrones
In April of 2023, Variety reported that HBO is "actively discussing" another prequel series about Aegon's Conquest – the war where Daenerys' ancestors took over Westeros and put the Seven Kingdoms under one banner. The report even mentioned that this story might begin with a feature-length film that could lead into an ongoing series. Again, this show would rely primarily on material from Fire & Blood. Follow-up reports elaborated that the project comes from writer Mattson Tomlin, the pen behind The Batman.
Tomlin gave a lot of new information on this project in May in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said: "That one is very early days where I'm currently writing the script, currently doing a lot of great back and forth with George... In speaking to George, it became really clear, 'This is history, treat this like it is what happened.' Unlike the original series, I don't have thousands of pages to go off to adapt. I've got a couple hundred that I'm really focused on, and in those pages of Fire & Blood, there are a lot of clues. It kind of turns into doing Napoleon or doing Alexander the Great or doing some great historical figure where we know a lot about the guy. We know where he was, we know who he conquered, we know who lived, and we know who died. That all becomes the plot, and then it becomes my job to go, but what did it mean thematically? How did it feel? What were the emotions when this person died and this person lived? We don't have the context. We don't know what anybody said."
It's hard to trace the real origin of this project, as the idea has been discussed in vague terms for years. Back in 2021, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal even mentioned his interest in adapting this story as well. There's no telling if, when or how we might see Aegon's Conquest on the screen.
Animated Options
Back in January of 2021, The Hollywood Reporter caught wind of an animated drama set in Westeros being developed specifically for HBO Max. This show had reportedly begun meetings with writers to develop it further, but so far no details about the plot or contents have been released.
When reporting on Martin's overall deal last week, THR speculated that the animated series could have an anthology style, since animation would allow the series to cover decades or even centuries' worth of Martin's fictional history in just a few episodes. Interestingly, writers Elio M. García and Linda Antonsson endorsed this idea. They co-wrote The World of Ice and Fire with Martin — an encyclopedia-style book about the world of Westeros.
"We would certainly think a World of Ice and Fire animated series would be pretty neat as an anthology show!" they wrote on their fan site, Westeros.org.
Even Martin, in one of his blog posts, said that he couldn't share many details about the animation projects in the works. He confirmed that there are multiple shows, and gushed: "things are moving very fast, and I love love love some of the concept art I am seeing." Other than that, he could only give specifics on one animated series in particular: the one set in Yi Ti.
Yi Ti
In mid-July of 2021, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that a new spinoff was in the works to explore one of the most exotic locations in Martin's fantasy world: The Golden Empire of Yi Ti. The nation is based on imperial China, and is on the opposite side of the map from Westeros where it remains mired in mystery as far as our perspective characters are concerned. It was barely mentioned in the Game of Thrones TV show and rarely comes up in the books either, though the details in The World of Ice and Fire fascinate readers to no end.
Martin wrote that the working title for this series is The Golden Empire, and that there is "a great young writer" developing the series. He also wrote: "I think the art and animation is just going to be beautiful. I would tell you more if I could."
Some fan theories speculate that Yi Ti is the original home of dragon-riders, like before Daenerys' ancestors formed the Valyrian Freehold. Whether or not a TV show would touch on those kinds of connections is uncertain. Again, these are mysteries that fans hoped would be revealed in Martin's completed books, so the prospect of seeing them play out in a disparate cinematic universe is bittersweet.
Scrapped Projects
While those are all the Game of Thrones spin-offs in the works at the time of this writing, fans may never get over the loss of the original slate of successors — particularly Bloodmoon. The first spinoff ordered to pilot, Bloodmoon was meant to take place 10,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones in the "Age of Heroes." Many expected it to explain the origins of the White Walkers, the construction of The Wall and other, more nuanced parts of Martin's magical world.
Bloodmoon filmed an expensive pilot with showrunner Jane Goldman and star Naomi Watts. The fact that it wasn't ordered to series from there left many fans heartbroken, and some hold out hope that it could be picked back up to this day. So far, HBO has made no remarks indicating that it will be.
Meanwhile, the drama Flea Bottom was also canceled in the development stage. It would have been set in the slums of King's Landing at an unspecified time, fleshing out the city and the people who toil there.The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of this cancellation in July of 2021.
Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are streaming now on Max. House of the Dragon Season 2 is airing now on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max. As for the other ideas listed above, fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed. Martin's books are available now in print, digital and audiobook formats.
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