The writers strike is (basically) over! How will this affect House of the Dragon season 2?

House of the Dragon has been filming for the bulk of 2023. It had gotten about a month in when the Writers Guild of America called a strike, leading to sets around the world being shut down. But now House of the Dragon. The scripts for the second season were already done, so they continued shooting what they had.

That said, things didn’t operate completely as normal. While filming continued even through the subsequent actors strike (there’s a weird loophole in British law that allowed them to keep at it), because of the writers strike, House of the Dragon could film the scripts that were already written but couldn’t come up with anything new on set, which happens sometimes. Parts of this scene between Alicent Hightower and her son Aegon Targaryen from the first season were improvised on set, for example:

Or did things operate completely as normal? House of the Dragon producers Ryan Condal and Sara Hess were both on set during filming for season 2. It’s possible they were operating in their capacities as showrunner and producer respectively, but they’re both writers, and the lines between their writing duties and producing duties may have gotten a little blurry. Who’s to say they didn’t change a line here or there despite the strike? So basically, it’s possible that House of the Dragon was cruising along as normal during the writers strike and that the end of the strike didn’t affect it at all.

House of the Dragon enters final week of filming on season 2

That said, there are some things the show couldn’t do before that it can do now. For instance, while it’s hard to know if lines were altered, added or subtracted here and there during shooting, one thing they definitely couldn’t do was write all-new scenes and shoot them. That kind of thing is usually done after filming is complete, anyway, after everything is in the can and the producers have an idea of what else, if anything, they may need.

So the producers can now write and film new scenes as needed. And not a moment too soon, since Redanian Intelligence reports that this week is the last week of filming on season 2.

We’ve been seeing indications that things are wrapping up, like actor Max Wrottesley (Kingsguard knight Lorent Marbrand) posting on Instagram that he’s done filming his scenes:

So House of the Dragon started filming before either the actors or writers strike had been called, filmed during both of them, and is ending right as the writers strike is coming to a close. Maybe the actors strike will wrap up before the week is out, but I doubt it.

In any case, expect to see the second season of House of the Dragon premiere on HBO and Max sometime in 2024.

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