Recently we've seen the cast and crew of House of the Dragon preparing in earnest to film season 3, with sets going up and actors reading through the new episodes. "We are approaching the imminent launch of season 3, so it's full madness," showrunner Ryan Condal said on his podcast The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of.
One of the biggest sequences Condal and company will shoot for season 3 is the Battle of the Gullet, a naval battle drawn directly from the pages of George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood. You'll remember that season 2 ended with Corlys Velaryon getting on his ship and preparing to captain his fleet on behalf of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Tyland Lannister recruited the pirate captain Sharako Lohar to sail at the head of a fleet in service to Rhaenyra's rival, King Aegon II Targaryen. Without spoiling things overmuch, these two navies will clash at the Battle of the Gullet, and they'll probably do it very early on in season 3.
And it sounds like they're going all out. Although the posting seems to have been taken down, at one point we see that Extra People — a site that hires extras to appear in film and TV projects — was looking for sailors to appear in this sequence. Happily, the internet preserved the advertisement before it was taken down. The original ad read something like, "Seeking physically fit men aged 20–40 with real Navy experience working on ships for an active and physically demanding role. Filming at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, from May to July 2025."
So that tells us that the Battle of the Gullet will take a goodly long time to film, from between May and July of this year. It's a major sequence, so that tracks. And apparently it's only one of four major events from Fire & Blood Condal hopes to adapt in this new season.
We'll keep an eye out for whether the ad comes back, in case any of the sea-faring, physically fit men in the audience want to apply. As for when we'll actually see the Battle of the Gullet play out onscreen, expect new episodes of House of the Dragon to air on HBO and Max sometime in 2026.
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