HBO executive Francesca Orsi recently talked to Deadline about all things HBO, including the state of Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. She has some juicy updates, so let’s dive in!
“We regard House of the Dragon as a piece that’s been incredibly successful and has exceeded all our expectations in delivering a spinoff,” Orsi said. “The flagship Game of Thrones is iconoclastic and to follow in its footsteps, in what David and Dan achieved, was no easy task, so we are proud of ourselves in what we were able to accomplish with Season 1.”
Indeed, the first season of the show was very successful, but season 2 is facing issues, namely that it’s filming during a writers strike, meaning there can’t be any rewrites or reshoots on set, to say nothing of starting to write scripts for season 3. That said, the scripts for all eight episodes are done, so they’re pushing forward. “To be honest, we think that the audience will be just as pleased if not more so,” Orsi said.
"We haven’t been in production for too long but what I’ve seen is pretty extraordinary. We have a beautiful cast that was assembled by Kate Rhodes [James], and we just are proud of seeing how those scripts are coming alive, the emotionality that the cast is bringing to it is something that we feel confident with and know that we’re going to deliver something special."
As for how the show is navigating the writers strike, showrunner Ryan Condal is on set, but Orsi says he’s limiting himself to the word of a non-writing producer. “If there is anything that needs to be rewritten or reshot, we’ll handle that after the strike, and we’ll put the resources behind revising what we need to do and reshooting what we need to do if we’ve made any mistakes along the way.”
So everything is moving forward. According to Deadline, the show is eying a release date of summer 2024. The first season premiered in August of 2022.
The second season of House of the Dragon will be “compressed”
The first season of House of the Dragon ran for 10 episodes. The second will have only eight. This was done with the full arc of the series in mind; the idea is that Condal and the other producers are structuring the whole show, and season 2 worked better with eight episodes.
Orsi shed a little more light on that decision. “There was some question about the narrative shape of Season 2,” she said. “We were developing it with Ryan Condal and Sara Hess, and we realized that we were sort of treading water narratively in the middle of the season. So it just felt much more rigorous, more urgent emotional arc for our characters if we compressed the season. And then that also dictated how we would kick off Season 3.”
I’ll admit that I get nervous when I hear about the season being “compressed.” The pessimistic reading of Orsi’s comment is that the original version of the second season had some episodes in the middle where there weren’t any big action beats, so they restructured things to make the season more exciting. That seems like a bad idea given how harshly the final couple of seasons of Game of Thrones were criticized for rushing from battle to battle without letting the characters talk and learn and grow.
I’m saying this right now, out loud: HBO, I’m happy to watch episodes where characters just speak and scheme and sit with their feelings; those can be some of the best ones. And you’d figure that HBO would know that; the network is known for producing prestige television, not cheap thrills. But because the first season of House of the Dragon was so strong, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
House of the Dragon won’t run for “any less than four” seasons
As for how may seasons House of the Dragon will ultimately run, Orsi doesn’t think it will be “any less than four.”
"It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion. [Fire & Blood author] George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see."
And now, let’s turn to to the other Game of Thrones prequel show officially in development.
HBO hopes to make A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms faster than House of the Dragon
In addition to House of the Dragon, HBO is also making a prequel series based on George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, about a knight and squire who travel Westeros decades after the end of House of the Dragon and decades before the start of Game of Thrones. It’s called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The novellas are great, so there’s a lot of excitement for this one.
“The plan is more of a creative one in that much of the reasoning behind it is that it has a smaller canvas, that there’s an intimacy to the visual canvas that allows us to generate the show faster than say House of the Dragon might turn around because there’s so much VFX,” Orsi said. “You may know based on the novellas that dragons don’t exist so by virtue of that it will be a faster piece to turn around given that we don’t have all these visual effect assets needing to deliver.”
Right now, the plan is to adapt each of the three Dunk and Egg novellas Martin has written so far; he plans to write more, but we all know how that goes with this guy. “e have our eye on three seasons that would map out each book, each novella,” Orsi said.
HBO doesn’t know if the Jon Snow prequel can “go all the way”
HBO is developing other Game of Thrones spinoff shows, but Orsi cautions that “they’re so nascent at this point that it’s more of a moot point until we realize them as real contenders for production greenlight.” In other words, they’re not far enough along to be worth talking about, and may well never get made.
That includes a show about what happens to Jon Snow after the end of Game of Thrones, which was pitched to HBO by actor Kit Harington himself. “We’re just working deeply with the writers to get it in shape for potential greenlight, but at this point, no, no determination on whether it can go all the way,” Orsi said.
When Orsi says “working deeply with the writers,” she probably doesn’t mean she’s doing that right now, because again: writers strike. The writers room for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is closed for business for the duration, and while season 2 of House of the Dragon is moving along, nothing can be written for season 3 until the strike is resolved.
“While everything at this moment is pencils down, I’m hopeful that we can come to terms sooner than later. Otherwise we will have to assess what is the end of the 24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025,” Orsi said.
We’re hoping for a fair deal for the writers.
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