HBO isn't greenlighting any more Game of Thrones spinoffs...for now

HBO currently has one Game of Thrones prequel show on the air — House of the Dragon — and another on the way: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is due out on HBO and Max next year. And it seems like lately we've been hearing a ton about other projects in development. There's a show about Aegon the Conqueror in the works. There's a Game of Thrones movie in early development. Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) may be getting back in the mix. It's true that HBO's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has said it wants to focus on franchises. Are we about to be inundated with way more Game of Thrones than we can handle?

Not so fast. While HBO is always looking at ideas, just because it's developing something doesn't mean that it's actually going to make a show or movie out of it. The network has shown before that it's not willing to go ahead with projects just because they're flashy or have a big name attached to them, shutting down the proposed Jon Snow sequel before it got off the ground and dumping a show called Blood Moon after it went so far as to film a pilot. Speaking to reporters, HBO executive Casey Bloys reminded us that, at least for now, the only Game of Thrones spinoffs we're going to get are the ones we've known exist for a long time: House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

“I think about ‘How many good Game of Thrones shows are there?'" Bloys said, per The Hollywood Reporter. "These are the only we’ve felt could go the distance. There’s no blinking green lights on any others right now.”

It's useful to point out at this juncture that a lot of the Game of Thrones projects we've heard are being worked on behind the scenes — including the Jon Snow show, the Game of Thrones movie, and whatever Maisie Williams is involved in — are the result of leaks, not announcements. It kind of gives the impression that Warner Bros. Discovery is going hog wild working on new Game of Thrones projects when really we're just hearing early about ideas that were never meant to see the light of day anyway, at least not in their early state.

Of course, there are companies like Disney that really do go hog wild working on new Star Wars and Marvel projects, but I'm willing to give Bloys and company the benefit of the doubt that they won't make a Game of Thrones spinoff unless they think they can make it really good. "I don't necessarily look at it from an investment point of view," Bloys mused about the GoT movie, per Entertainment Weekly. "[J]ust like, would it be a fun, big movie? I think there's potential for that." And there is, but potential doesn't mean certainty.

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