'Game of Thrones' Spinoff Writer Reveals George R.R. Martin's Close Involvement with 'Aegon's Conquest'

'The Batman' writer Mattson Tomlin said Martin has helped him build out his treatment for the prequel series.

By Michael Hein

Writer Mattson Tomlin is in the early stages of developing a Game of Thrones spinoff about Aegon's Conquest, but he still had some interesting things to say about the project in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. Tomlin spoke to the outlet last month primarily to promote Terminator: Zero, but he was able to confirm that he is working on a treatment for the Westerosi prequel. Perhaps most interestingly for fans, he said that author George R.R. Martin has been actively helpful in the process.

When asked about Aegon's Conquest, Tomlin 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." Fans of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series are always interested to hear about his level of involvement in the TV shows – partially because it may indicate the quality of the show, and partially because it indicates how much time Martin is spending on his Hollywood projects compared to his long-awaited novel. Of course, we can only guess and make inferences. Martin himself said he spent about as much time on The Winds of Winter in 2023 as he did in 2022.

Tomlin's show would be set about 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and about 120 years before the events of House of the Dragon. It would be about the Targaryens who conquered the Seven Kingdoms and united them. Much like House of the Dragon, it would take material that has only been described in historical terms via unreliable narrators in Martin's books, and translate it into a more literal narrative on screen. Tomlin said that Martin has helped him dial in on the tone and format of such a show.

"In speaking to George, it became really clear, 'This is history, treat this like it is what happened,'" Tomlin said. "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."

Fortunately, House of the Dragon has already set a strong standard for Tomlin in this regard. That show is also based on Martin's fictional history book, Fire & Blood, which covers the first half of the Targaryen dynasty in Westeros. It also showed fans how a TV adaptation can flesh out important details – for example, Season 1 revealed that Aegon the Conqueror invaded Westeros because of a prescient dream he had about the White Walkers. There are plenty of similar revelations that could come from Tomlin's show.

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HBO has ordered one other spinoff that is based on more straightforward material – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. That is an adaptation of Martin's novella The Hedge Knight – the first in a series of novellas set about 90 years before Game of Thrones. It is filming now and is expected to premiere sometime in 2025. There's no telling if HBO has room for a third show in Westeros at the same time, but if so Tomlin's project is just one of several contenders.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on Sunday, June 16 on HBO and Max. Martin's books are available now in print, digital and audiobook formats.

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