George R.R. Martin signs $10 million-plus development deal with HBO

We’ve got good news for fans who want George R.R. Martin to work on HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel shows, and bad news for fans still waiting for his books.

George R.R. Martin is rich. I mean, he already was rich, but now…

The Hollywood Reporter has it that the Song of Ice and Fire author has signed a five-year deal that’s worth “mid-eight figures,” which means he’s getting over $10 million to develop content for the network, which is pretty nuts.

Martin, of course, had a huge success helping develop Game of Thrones for HBO, and the network is working on several more spin-offs. House of the Dragon is officially going to series with a 10-episode first season next year. Set over 100 years before the original series, it tells the story of the Dance of the Dragons, a brutal Targaryen civil war that pits family member against family member and dragon against dragon. Then there are several shows that are in development but haven’t officially been ordered to series:

• Tales of Dunk and Egg: This adaptation of Martin’s novellas will follow Duncan the Tall and Aegon Targaryen, a hedge knight and squire who travel Westeros some 90 years before the start of Game of Thrones.
• 10,000 Ships: This show would tell the story of Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar, a ruler on Essos who led the people of the Rhoynar to Dorne and helped establish many of its traditions.
• 9 Voyages, or Sea Snake: This show is about the younger days of Lord Corlys Velaryon, who took his ship the Sea Snake on various voyages to parts of the known world we never saw on Game of Thrones, like the island of Leng and the civilization of Yi Ti. As an older man, Corlys Velaryon will be an important character on House of the Dragon.
• Flea Bottom: This show is set in Flea Bottom, the poorest and dingiest section of King’s Landing. No idea what it’s about. Gritty urban drama? Cheers-like sitcom? It’s wide open.
• Animated drama: Again, no idea what this would be about, but it’s set in the world of Game of Thrones and it’s animated.

House of the Dragon is the only show we know we’re getting for sure. We may get all of the rest of them. We may get none. (Interestingly, the Robert’s Rebellion spin-off we heard about is nowhere on this list, suggesting that it may already have been abandoned, if it was ever real to start with.) But if HBO is paying Martin over $10 million to work on content, surely he could help develop one or two.

Will that leave him much time to work on The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, the purported final two books in his book series? Beats me. Fans often joke about all the things Martin gets up to other than writing A Song of Ice and Fire, and this new deal will probably provide us with more fodder. And keep in mind that Martin is already developing other projects for HBO that have nothing to do with Westeros, including an adaptation of the post-apocalyptic novel Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor and the fantasy novel Landmarks by Roger Zelazny.

What do make of this news?

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