It’s official: HBO is working on Game of Thrones spinoffs

It was always pretty inevitable that HBO would look into making a spinoff of Game of Thrones. The show is too popular to just leave on the shelf after the final season ends in 2018. Now, Variety reports that the wheels are officially in motion. HBO has inked deals with four writers “to explore multiple possible spinoffs.”

The four writers are:

• Max Borenstein (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island)
• Jane Goldman (Kingsman: The Golden Circle, X-Men: First Class)
• Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River)
• Carly Wray (Mad Men, The Bastard Executioner)

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss will be “attached” to the four projects, as will A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, although none of them will do any actual writing. Goldman and Wray will even work directly with Martin on their projects. That may be what Martin was referring to a couple months back, when he wrote that he was involved with “lots of stuff with HBO that I cannot talk about yet.”

At the moment, there’s no timeline 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,” said an HBO spokesperson. Still, this is potentially huge. Is HBO looking to make more than one show based on Game of Thrones, or is it exploring multiple options and then choosing the best one? Lord knows there’s plenty of material on which to base a new show.

A spinoff about Aegon’s conquering of Westeros, anyone?

For your edification, there are some things the network has previously said about a potential spinoff. Let’s see if there are any clues in there:

• HBO programming president Casey Bloys said that a prequel series is more likely than a spinoff. “[George R.R. Martin’s history of Westeros] gives you areas in which to say to a writer, ‘If you were going to do this, then go flesh it out,’ and we’ll see what comes back.”
• While in Austin for SXSW, David Benioff implied that he and Weiss probably wouldn’t be involved in any spinoff or prequel series. “I think it’s better for them to get new blood in with new visions.” So the fact they’re “attached” to the new projects is a little surprising. Of course, “attached” can mean anything. It may be a very light, consultative role.
• A petition to turn Robert’s Rebellion into a prequel series gained thousands of signatures last year. Just saying.

Also of note is that Variety says that season 8 of Game of Thrones will consist of “between six and eight episodes.” The showrunners have already said that it’ll just have six, so take that with a grain of salt.