House of the Dragon, HBO’s hotly anticipated follow-up to Game of Thrones, premieres in August. Like Game of Thrones, this new show tells a tale that will need multiple seasons to reach completion.
The show is based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. We begin around 200 years before Daenerys Targaryen or Jon Snow or any of those people were even born; there’s a Targaryen king on the throne and deepening rivalries forming within his court. When he dies and the factions don’t agree on who should succeed him on the Iron Throne…things get messy.
Game of Thrones was the most complicated show of its day from a production standpoint, but it has nothing on House of the Dragon. You think it’s hard animating three baby dragons? Try dozens of full-grown ones, which were flying all over Westeros during this time period. If HBO wants to put out new seasons of the show with anything even approaching regularity, it’ll need to work ahead. Happily, it sounds like the wheels are already moving on season 2.
House of the Dragon season 2 sounds like it’s in the works
Redanian Intelligence, which has proven itself reliable when it comes to behind-the-scenes sleuthing, reports that writing has already begun on House of the Dragon season 2. That implies that HBO has already renewed the show, even if it hasn’t yet made a formal announcement. HBO programming chief Casey Bloys recently said that the Game of Thrones prequel had “a pretty good shot” of getting renewed, but didn’t commit to anything solid.
That said, the first season would have to be a catastrophic failure for HBO not to make more of this show. Game of Thrones was the biggest series of the 2010s and HBO most definitely wants to capitalize on that. And again, it wants to put out seasons regularly enough that people don’t forget about the series during the breaks.
Considering how complex these big fantasy shows are to mount, that means getting out of ahead of things is basically a necessity. Even if production on House of the Dragon season 2 started tomorrow, there’d be no guarantee we’d see those episodes within a year. With season 2 being at the writing stage, it’s possible we won’t see them until 2024.
But that’s HBO’s problem. For now, we get to enjoy the first season of House of the Dragon when it premieres on HBO and HBO Max on August 21. Here’s hoping it flies high.
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