House of the Dragon spinoff about Corlys Velaryon switches from live-action to animation

Not long after the end of Game of Thrones, HBO started developing several spinoff ideas. One of them, Blood Moon, died on the vine. Another, House of the Dragon, is currently one of HBO's most popular shows. Yet another, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is in active development and could arrive on our screens as early as 2025.

But there are even more Game of Thrones spinoffs HBO is working on that have never been officially announced. Some of these may never see the light of day; in fact, most probably won't. But HBO is working on them, and it's possible that another one or two could cross the tantalizing boundary between "idea for TV show" and "TV show."

A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, who consults on all of these projects, occasionally drops little hints here and there. On New Year's Eve, he wrote on his Not a Blog about some of the animated shows set in the Game of Thrones universe that HBO is developing. "None of them have been greenlit yet, but I think we are getting close to taking the next step with a couple of them," he wrote.   When this last round of development started a few years back, we had four ideas for animated shows, with some great talents attached. Writers rooms and summits, outline and scripts followed in due course… but, alas, two of the original projects were subsequently shelved."

It's hard to know exactly what shows Martin is talking about here. The only animated spinoff we had solid word on was a series about Yi Ti, a country far to the east of Westeros; as Westeros is inspired by medieval Europe, so is Yi Ti inspired by medieval China. What was happening there while the Lannisters and Starks fought the War of the Five Kings in Westeros? Perhaps this series would tell us.

We don't know whether the Yi Ti series was one of the two animated spinoffs that got "shelved" or one of the two still in development. In any case, Martin also revealed that a planned live-action spinoff called Nine Voyages -- about the eventful younger life of Corlys Velaryon, whom we're getting to know as an older man played by Steve Toussaint on House of the Dragon -- is now an animated project, a move that Martin supports "fully":

"Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to… well, on and on and on.  There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation.  So we now have three animated projects underway."

If this or any of the other animated shows in HBO's arsenel end up getting the greenlight, Martin hopes to make them "good as gorgeous and gripping" as possible, but admits there's no way to know if any of them will make it onto our TV screens. Personally, I'm okay with HBO holding back on Game of Thrones for a while, what with a new season of House of the Dragon coming this year and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms waitingi in the wings. I also think that's in line what what HBO CEO Casey Bloys has said about avoiding franchise fatigue, which has become an issue for companies like Marvel Studios.

But I also wouldn't mind seeing a young Corlys Velaryon take to the high seas in animated form. Whatever happens, hopefully fans come out ahead.

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