Game of Thrones Prequel Pilot Greenlit at HBO, Promises to Show Westeros’ ‘Darkest Hour’
History is long and full of terrors, and the next series in the Game of Thrones universe is going to show us all of ’em.
HBO on Friday officially ordered a prequel pilot set in the same world as its massively successful, award-winning fantasy drama — except the action will take place thousands of years before the Cersei’s/Daenerys’/Stannis’/etc. fight for the Iron Throne, TVLine has learned.
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Per the official logline, “the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”
Last May, HBO announced that it had deals with four writers — Carly Wray (Mad Men), Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class), Brian Helgeland (Mystic River) and Max Borenstein (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island) — to “explore different time periods of [George R.R. Martin]’s vast and rich universe. There is no set timetable for these projects. We’ll take as much or as little time as the writers need and, as with all our development, we will evaluate what we have when the scripts are in.” (It was later confirmed that Thrones co-executive producer Bryan Cogman was working on a fifth idea.)
In the end, Goldman’s concept was chosen for production. She and Thrones author George R.R. Martin will executive-produce, along with Vince Gerardis (Game of Thrones) and Daniel Zelman (Bloodline). Goldman also will serve as showrunner.
In January, HBO president Casey Bloys told TVLine that the earliest the prequel would air would be one year after Game of Thrones‘ series finale (which will bow in 2019).“We want the final season of Game of Thrones, being the special event that it is [to stand on its own],” he said. “We don’t want to use it to launch [a new series]. We want some separation there.”
(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the prequel had received a series, not a pilot, order.)
Early 2019 GoT Finale and Fall 2019 New Series Would be Perfect, but I know we gotta wait Spring 2019 and Early/Spring 2020 instead…. ;_;
It’s more likely that it will take until 2021 for the new series to show up. As GoT is winding down the focus is growing on Westworld and the next season of that probably won’t come until spring 2020. HBO has a way of milking it’s big budget shows.
Lol, them books are never going to be finished. GRRM is just going to ride this HBO gravy train into retirement.
He has another show on SyFy next season. Can’t recall the name though.
The Long Night, huh? Interesting.
Let’s hope that the GoT finale doesn’t tank the series in the eyes of fans as did the last episode of Battlestar Galactica. It not only sank the series in syndication but made prequels like Caprica DOA.
It wasn’t the ending of BG that killed Caprica. Although it was slow, with at least a half hour it didn’t need, it didn’t really hurt the series. Once the series ended people were satisfied so see a conclusion and didn’t feel any need to watch more BG. “You can only catch the one-armed man once,” as the saying goes.
And many people just aren’t fans of prequels now.
but why? we already know how it ends?
The main series needs to wrap before I can think about a spin off. B/w the wait for the finale is agony!
Bran the Builder, Garth Greenhands, Lann the Clever, Durran Godsgrief, the Grey King and so many more are all possibilities. Plus the first Night’s Watch, building the wall, Casterly Rock being swindled from the Casterly’s. Super excited. Personally I would have rather had the first series be of the Targaryen Dynasty start with the conquest and ending with Robert’s Rebellion but as long as all of the shows remain popular we will eventually see it.
Anyone honestly believed HBO would just walk away from GoT? Anyone?
This should have most of the book fans tuning in, but it’s hard to say how many of the casual fans, that is those just watching the show and not reading the books, will watch.
It seems like an interesting idea but I don’t see it working because a lot of the original fan base is from the books. Since we will already kind of know the ending it will make the prequel a lot less fun.
As disappointing as the final season of GOT is turning out to be, I don’t think I want to get invested in another long series.. maybe if they were doing a prequel with just a few generations before this one, recent history that actually affected the characters we already know.. but something ‘thousands of years’ before the current show’s events doesn’t interest me.