We're currently in the middle of the second season of House of the Dragon, HBO's first Game of Thrones prequel show to make it to air. But HBO already has another prequel in the hopper: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on George R.R. Martin's Dunk and Egg novellas. Set decades after the events of House of the Dragon but decades before Game of Thrones, these novellas follow a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his diminutive squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as they travel around the Seven Kingdoms having adventures. There are no dragons, more smallfolk, and less bone-crushing tragedy than on House of the Dragon. The pitch for the show is kind of, "What if Game of Thrones but more fun?"
George R.R. Martin wrote about the show over the weekend on his Not a Blog, saying that "the new show will debut in 2025." However, since then, he's edited the post to remove the word "early." So now it just reads "the show will debut in 2025."
I know, we're writing a whole post about a one-word change in a blog post. But that one word means something! My guess is that Martin jumped the gun a little bit saying that the show was coming in "early 2025," someone from HBO said, "Please don't commit us to that," and he amended it slightly.
In truth, "early 2025" did sound awfully soon to me. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms only began filming this month, and even though it's not as complicated a show as House of the Dragon, that's still a quick turnaround. Plus, House of the Dragon season 2 will wrap up in early August, and we might have another two-year wait in store for season 3. I figure HBO would want to air A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms about a year after House of the Dragon season 2, so we're reminded how much we like this franchise just as we're starting to forget about it.
Nothing's set in stone yet, but the picture is becoming clearer. For now, new episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays on HBO and Max.
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