Game of Thrones fans, the ravens have brought us great news! The wait is finally over, HBO has officially ordered a prequel TV series pilot for the hit show that first aired in 2011.
The talk of five possible prequel shows in the works started in 2016. A slew of writers have been developing the scripts, but it was Jane Goldman’s pilot script that was chosen to be the first to be green-lit. Goldman and George RR Martin co-created the story, while Goldman herself wrote the teleplay for the upcoming prequel show and will also serve as the showrunner. Last year, Goldman hinted that her series would include humor and gore. “Those are things I love, and things I like to do,” she told Digital Spy. “It would be remiss of me not to put them in.” Some of Goldman’s other notable work includes Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, and Kingsman: The Secret Service.
According to HBO, the pilot will take place “thousands of years before” the events of the current Game of Thrones series. “The series chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour,” the statement continued. “And only one thing is for sure: From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend…it’s not the story we think we know.”
George RR Martin has shared an update on the new prequel on his blog on Monday.
None of the characters or actors from ‘Game of Thrones’ will appear in the new show. All of the successor shows we’ve been developing have been prequels, as I have mentioned before. This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are masters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long). We’re very early in the process, of course, with the pilot order just in, so we don’t have a director yet, or a cast, or a location, or even a title. (My vote would be THE LONG NIGHT, which says it all, but I’d be surprised if that’s where we end up. More likely HBO will want to work the phrase “game of thrones” in there somewhere. We’ll know sooner or later).
The name Mr. Martin suggested excites me, the Long Night is a Westeros historical event 8,000 years before the Targaryen Conquest, during which the winter lasted an entire generation.
HBO’s programming president, Casey Bloys, revealed that the first prequel show will not air until at least a year after the main show ends. The final season of the original show will air in 2019 with Bloys referring to it as “six one-hour movies.”
Are you looking forward to the Game Of Thrones prequel show? Let us know in the comments.
