Everything George R.R Martin is working on besides “The Winds of Winter”
In the Lost Lands
This project sticks out from the pack. First, it is a feature film and not a TV series. Second, it’s done. It’s currently in post-production and set for a release date of February 2024. And finally, it’s not a part of the Game of Thrones universe at all!
The film, based on a short story of the same name by George R.R Martin that was written almost 20 years before the first A Song of Ice and Fire novel, is written and directed by Paul W.S Anderson. It stars Milla Jovovich and stars Dave Bautista. Anderson is known for sci-fi action thrillers such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Event Horizon, and Mortal Kombat.
Martin’s short story is about a sorceress named Grey Alys (Jonovich) who travels to a dangerous world in search of a magical power that can transform humans into werewolves. Bautista plays Boyce, a drifter who serves as Alys’ guide on her journey through the foreboding Lost Lands.
Wild Cards
Wild Cards is a series of anthology books containing stories written by a wide variety of writers and edited by Martin. The series takes place in a word where, at the end of World War II, an alien pathogen gives a lucky few people superpowers and the rest repulsive deformities. The book series began from a group of sci-fi writers playing a Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing game. Martin, as the game master, decided to take the stories he and his friends were telling together and bind them into books.
There are over 50 Wild Cards titles by over 40 authors released between 1987 through to the present day. Now, NBC/Universal is developing a Wild Cards TV show. Details on the series are few and far between, but George R.R. Martin is unlikely to be heavily involved due to his exclusive development deal with HBO.
Wild Cards is an interesting, George R.R. Martin-esc take on the superhero genre. If you’re interested, there’s plenty of Wild Cards stuff out there already.
Dark Winds
Martin is also involved in a couple of TV shows that have nothing to do with his writing. That includes Dark Winds, an AMC series based on Leaphorn & Chee novel series by Tony Hillerman. The show follows the lives of two Navajo police officers, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, in the southwestern United States in the ’70s.
Martin has written about his appreciation for Hillerman’s work before, and occasionally posts about the show on his blog. He is an executive producer alongside star Zahn McClarnon, Tony Hillerman’s daughter Anne, acting legend Robert Redford, and others.
Who Fears Death
So we mentioned that Martin has a development deal with HBO. Sure, it’s been suspended while the Hollywood writers strike is on, but that means he can’t really work on TV shows that aren’t for HBO. While he’s an executive producer on Wild Cards and Dark Winds, he’s probably there just for the sake of his name. They’re not gonna drain his time too much.
But he’s also helping develop a different show for HBO: Who Fears Death, based on the award-winning 2011 novel by Nnedi Okorafor. Who Fears Death is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Sudan where the light-skinned Nuru oppress the dark-skinned Okeke. The main character, Onyesonwu, goes on a journey to defeat her sorcerer father, mastering her magical abilities while becoming a beacon for an oppressed people.
We haven’t heard anything about this series in a while, and it’s definitely not moving forward during the writers and actors strikes, but should it get off the ground, this show might take more of Martin’s time than Dark Winds or Wild Cards.