In House of the Dragon, the show’s predecessor looms large. And so does the original series’s memorable title sequence. Longtime Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik and composer Ramin Djawadi return to the spinoff, giving the new series a distinct Thrones-ian air. But as fans ran back to HBO to catch the very first installment of the franchise’s new offering, they found a key puzzle piece missing from the otherwise-stuffed buffet of palace intrigue and bloody spectacle. The opening credits sequence is missing! And what would Thrones be without the title sequence that oriented us in the sprawling fantasy world, flinging the viewer across an animated map of the season’s cross-continental locales? The absence of the opening sequence in the first episode of House of the Dragon — which was once so thrilling in GoT that we here at Vulture covered it in its multiple iterations — could point to the fact that the spinoff is more geographically contained. (The show concerns itself with one incestuous bloodline, the House Targaryen, and is centered around the events in Kings Landing.) Or, perhaps, it’s all a matter of VFX (could HBO be waiting on final renderings?). Well, an insider at HBO tells Vulture that the showrunners wanted to give us a cold opening of sorts to get on and tell the story without the indulgence of a Ramin Djawadi–scored title sequence. So prepare yourself, viewers. We’re gonna get down and indulgent with a tasty little title sequence next week.
