George R.R. Martin weighs in on House of the Dragon release date

This week the news broke that HBO’s highly anticipated Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, which details a brutal Targaryen civil war set almost 200 years before the original series, is officially “out of production.” We took this to mean that the show had finished filming, and now A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin has confirmed that this is the case.

Taking to his popular Not a Blog on Thursday, Martin gave fans a bit more information about the state of House of the Dragon, including that he’d gotten the official word from HBO that filming is done. There’s a lot of post-production work left though, and Martin outlines a bit of what that entails as well. Here’s what he had to say:

"Exciting news out of London — I am informed that shooting has WRAPPED for the first season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.Yes, all ten episodes. I have seen rough cuts of a few of them, and I’m loving them. Of course, a lot more work needs to be done. Special effects, color timing, score, all the post production work.”But the writing, the directing, the acting all look terrific. I hope you will like them as much as I do. My hat is off to [showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik] and their team, and to our amazing cast."

So there you have it. It’s no real surprise that the show is getting Martin’s seal of approval — he previously talked about getting to see the first couple of episodes and how much he enjoyed them. But it’s great to hear that things are moving forward on the show and that Martin’s feeling good about that state of things.

George R.R. Martin weighs in on House of the Dragon release window

Aside from simply confirming the state of the production, Martin also addressed the big question that’s on all of our minds: when will House of the Dragon actually be coming to our TV screens?

"So when will you get to see it, you ask? When will the dragons dance?I wish I could tell you. Lots of work remains to be done, as I said, and covid makes planning difficult. This spring? Unlikely. Maybe summer? Could be. Fall? Who knows?You’ll know when we do."

Alas, no such luck as a solid release date, but that’s to be expected. As Martin said, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done on House of the Dragon. This lines up with what we’ve been expecting; the rumors that the show was coming in the spring always seemed a bit too optimistic to be real.

For now, there’s plenty of reason to get excited. House of the Dragon is done filming, which means its time for the visual effects teams to get to work putting in the many dragons that will rule the skies of Westeros.

House of the Dragon is coming to HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2022.

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