While Game of Thrones gears up for its final outing, HBO is quietly moving ahead with its still-untitled prequel series headlined by Naomi Watts. According to the Belfast Telegraph, the crew will shoot in the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa this spring before returning to Titantic Studios in Northern Ireland, long the base of operations for Game of Thrones, in the fall. “We will be shooting on location in Tenerife and Las Palmas throughout the spring,” an industry source told the Telegraph. “After that, we will be coming back to Belfast for production work in the Paint Hall.”
Most of the show’s interior sets for Game of Thrones reside at the Paint Hall; for season 8, the crew even build a massive replica of King’s Landing in the lot outside. The prequel series is set thousand before the main show, before King’s Landing was built, so they probably won’t be using that set. Still, filming in Belfast makes lots of sense. HBO has already laid a lot of infrastructure in the area, and the local authorities are happy the network is sticking around. “It’s great news for everyone involved in the film industry in Northern Ireland,” said the Telegraph’s source. “f the Long Night is even half as successful as Game of Thrones, it will pump millions of pounds into the local economy.”
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The choice to shoot in the Canary Islands is interesting. Although lying off the coast of Morocco, the Canary Islands are governed by Spain. HBO filmed a lot of Game of Thrones on the Spanish mainland, including scenes in Meereen, King’s Landing, Braavos, Dorne and the famous Loot Train Attack. HBO was rumored to have scouted the islands in advance of season 7, although its unclear if anything happened there. Back then, HBO would have gotten a 35% tax break for filming on the island of Tenerife (as opposed to 15% for filming on mainland Spain). If that’s still the case, it’s obvious why the island would be attractive.
The prequel will explore not only the history of Westeros, but also “the mysteries of the east,” according to HBO’s synopsis. Perhaps HBO needs a new location to do justice to showrunner Jane Goldman’s vision of these hitherto unseen lands.
Tenerife is known for its sandy beaches and Teide National Park, home of an active volcano. In George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Dragonstone was built atop a volcano, although we haven’t seen evidence of that in the show.
What does everyone think? Can HBO make use of that volcano? Or is the crew just here for a paid beach vacation?
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