The second season of House of the Dragon ended earlier this month with a montage of various armies and navies on their way to battle. But it'll be a while before we see them clash. We had to wait two years between the first and second seasons of this Game of Thrones prequel show, and the pattern will likely repeat itself for season 3.
We're now getting a better idea of the exact timeline. According to Production List, a pretty reliable industry rag that catalogs shoot dates for major shows and movies, preproduction on House of the Dragon season 3 is going to start up on October 31, 2024. So the third season of House of the Dragon will start grinding to life on Halloween. Should we be scared?
That's likely a general target date; it may shift back or forth. As for when the cameras will actually start to roll, showrunner Ryan Condal has said he expects that to begin in "earlyish 2025." It all lines up with our best guesses; expect new episodes in 2026.
We'll return to Westeros in 2025, but won't see new episodes of House of the Dragon until 2026
No one likes to wait multiple years between new seasons of television, but it's become de rigueur in this age of expensive, special effects-heavy dramas. We can actually thank Game of Thrones for that; for the first seven seasons of the show, HBO released one season per year. But for the elaborate eighth and final seasons, we had to wait two years, which gave the cast and crew time to make sure it felt special. (And yes, ironically, that's the season that got a ton of backlash from fans; it's not a perfect system.)
HBO hasn't found a way to get new seasons of House of the Dragon out sooner, but they are helping fans through the wait with a new Game of Thrones prequel show: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. That one is based on George R.R. Martin's Dunk & Egg novellas and will be set decades after the events of House of the Dragon but decades before Game of Thrones. It will be a smaller-scale project out sometime in 2025. Hopefully that will help bridge the gap.
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h/t Westerosies