Writers room for Game of Thrones prequel may be majority female

House of the Dragon, HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series, adds another writer to the room, which is looking much bigger than on the original show.

Work on House of the Dragon, HBO’s follow-up to Game of Thrones, is well underway. The show has already cast its first actor: Paddy Considine as King Viserys I Targaryen, whose death precipitates the brutal Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. It’s also put together a solid writers room, operating under the watch of showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, known for directing some of the very best episodes of Game of Thrones.

As of right now, the writers include Condal, who was the showrunner on the sci-fi series Colony and a buddy of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin’s; Colony writer Wes Tooke; playwright Claire Kiechel; and Ti Mikkel, a former writing assistant of Martin’s. Fantasy author David Anthony Durham may also be on the team, although that’s not confirmed.

And now, Variety brings us news of another writer in the room: Charmaine DeGraté, who’s worked on shows like The 100 and the upcoming Daisy Jones & The Six, for Amazon. She also sold a spy thriller called Protégé after participating in The Lucky Exports Pitch Program, an all-female screenwriting lab co-founded by Margot Robbie.

Assuming David Anthony Durham doesn’t actually end up on staff and Sapochnik confines himself to directing, this would mean that the House of the Dragon writers room would be made up of three women (Kiechel, Mikkel and DeGraté) and two men (Condal and Tooke). This would be a big difference from Game of Thrones, where showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss took on the great majority of writing duties, with help from staff writers Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill.

Mind you, I don’t think there’s one right way to build a writers room, but there were definitely times watching Game of Thrones I wished there had been another voice or two at the table. The Game of Thrones writers room was small for a TV show, with House of the Dragon looking more traditional. The hope is that having lots of different perspectives in the room will correct for blind spots and make sure the best version of the story gets told.

Look for House of the Dragon to debut sometime in 2022, if everything goes according to plan.

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