There's a Game of Thrones movie in early development

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio that owns HBO, has been quietly developing a Game of Thrones movie. There's no cast, there's no writer, there's no director. We don't know what the movie would be about. Maybe it would be a prequel, like the TV shows House of the Dragon or the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Maybe it would be a sequel, like the Jon Snow show that got developed and then dropped. It's possible that WBD will develop this idea in the background only to drop it without it ever coming to anything; keep in mind that they're not announcing this movie, THR just dug up this info.

So we don't know much about this movie except that the idea for it exists, and that it's being worked on at some level. Back when the original Game of Thrones show was wrapping up, showrunner David Benioff and Dan Weiss wanted to end the series as a trio of movies, but HBO felt strongly that the show should end the way it began: as a show.

So what changed? Well, it could be that whatever idea is being contemplated would just work better as a movie than as a show. Maybe it's about a discrete event in the history of Westeros as imagined by George R.R. Martin, like the famous Tourney at Harrenhal. It's also true that there's been a lot of changes at Warner Bros. Discovery since Game of Thrones ended in 2019. There's a lot more cross-pollination between the TV and movie side of the business now. The Penguin, which is running right now, is about a supporting villain character from the 2022 movie The Batman. In a few weeks, HBO will premiere Dune: Prophecy, a TV prequel to the two Dune movies directed by Denis Villeneuve. There's also a TV show spinoff of the horror movie IT coming to HBO. So far these TV spinoffs have done well, so why not go the other way?

Anyway, that's likely the logic the executives at Warner Bros. Discovery are using. You can judge for yourself whether a Game of Thrones movie would be a good idea. I could see it working, if the movie tells a story compressed enough that it doesn't require the space afforded by a TV show. Back when they were working on a Jon Snow sequel show, I wondered if something like that would work better as a movie. Who knows? Maybe it will.

I'll stress again that we don't know anything about this movie, and it could very well die at these early stages; HBO is always working on potential Game of Thrones spinoff ideas, but several have been set aside along the way. We'll keep an eye out to see what, if anything, happens with this project.

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