Game of Thrones is the most successful series in the history of HBO. It was inevitable that the network would make a spinoff or two. So far, the prequel series House of the Dragon has been a success. We're getting a new spinoff called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas by George R.R. Martin, later this year, and HBO is already building the foundation for more.
Martin himself confirmed as much when talking to Collider. "I've seen Dunk and Egg, the first season, and it's great, and now they're working on the second season," he said. "Those are two characters were really special to me, and they're unusual, those characters. They're not what most people would expect in a fantasy story."
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is about a tall, stalwart knight named Dunk and his precocious squire Egg. It's set decades after the events of House of the Dragon but decades before Game of Thrones. There are no dragons around, and by and large the action centers around these two characters traveling the Seven Kingdoms having adventures. "It's a little softer. It's a little more humorous. I hope the audience will be open to that kind of change," Martin said.
The first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will be based on The Hedge Knight, the first of three novellas Martin has written in the series. Obviously, should HBO make more, they'll move onto adapting the next two. HBO hasn't officially committed to making more seasons, but the signs are very positive.
Martin says The Winds of Winter is coming along "pretty well"
It's great to see Martin react positively to this new Game of Thrones show after he's aired some of his grievances with House of the Dragon. Martin is an author first, but he's had plenty of experience working in TV, and he knows how hard and rare it is to make a good adaptation. "It can be great, but, you know, like I said, this is a complicated business, and you really never know," he said. "It's always changing too. A new writer starts a career and he's doing a show, and he gets hired to do another show and a new showrunner comes in; the ratings are low, the ratings are high. I don't know, I could do a whole course in having a career in television and film."
Sometimes, Martin says, the stars align and the process of adapting a written work for TV is fun and exciting. And then "some of them are frustrating, and they become less fun."
"You try to make the story as good as it can be, and some fans will like it, some fans will not like it. You're always going to get criticism, but you've got to keep trying. You've got to try to do every one the best it can possibly be."
And for fans frustrated that TV adaptations stray too far from the source material, they can always return to the books...although that can be hard in the case of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, the basis for Game of Thrones. Martin has been working on the sixth book in that series, The Winds of Winter, for over a decade by this point. "I have to get back," he told Collider. "I have to finish the books. That's the one thing I'm completely in control of. There's no budget limitations. There's no other executives on the studio side that I have to please, or other writers with different views. The books are what I'm going to make them. And, I think the one I'm writing is coming pretty well, but I wish it would come faster."
So say we all. While we wait for Winds, we can enjoy A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will air its six-episode first season on HBO and Max sometime later this year.
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