'Game of Thrones' Spinoff 'Dunk & Egg' Officially Secures a Writer

By Michael Hein

Screenwriter Steve Conrad has reportedly signed on to write and executive produce one of HBO's Game of Thrones spinoff series. Among the projects in development is an adaptation of Martin's novella series The Tales of Dunk & Egg, and sources close to the production told Deadline that Conrad has been hired. So far, Conrad and HBO have not commented on the report.

Conrad is best known for creating and writing the Amazon Prime original series Patriot, and for writing movies like Wonder, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Weather Man, among others. The writer hails from Florida, and he currently has a stop-motion comedy series airing on AMC+ called Ultra City Smiths. Die-hard fans of George R.R. Martin's writing are already busy debating whether Conrad has the qualifications to cover Westeros – particularly the fan-favorite novellas known as Dunk & Egg.

The Tales of Dunk & Egg are novellas set in Westeros about 90 years before the events of A Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire. They follow the perspective of an impoverished but principled "hedge knight" known as Ser Duncan the Tall. In the first novella, "The Hedge Knight," "Dunk" accidentally becomes entangled with the ruling Targaryen family and winds up taking the young Aegon "Egg" Targaryen as his squire. The two travel Westeros in two more novellas, "The Sworn Sword" and "The Mystery Knight," observing the lives of common people and intervening where they can.

The stories are far smaller and simpler than the rest of Martin's series, but fans expect them to have major implications on the continuity down the road. In Martin's books, we learn that Egg goes on to become king, though his low rank in the order of succession earns him the nickname "Aegon the Unlikely." He is the king who enacts the mysterious "tragedy at Summerhall" later in life, which Martin has said will be an important revelation to the rest of the story.

Martin has also said that he intends to write at least six more novellas in this series and that he is saving some mysteries about his characters to be answered later on. Of course, considering Martin's slow pace in finishing A Song of Ice and Fire itself, fans are concerned about kicking off a new series based on incomplete source material.

Martin himself has not commented on the Dunk & Egg adaptation yet, and so far, neither has HBO. A script from Conrad may simply be the next step in a development process that ultimately goes nowhere, with at least five other Game of Thrones spinoffs in the works. For now, all we know is that House of the Dragon premieres sometime in 2022.

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