One by one, HBO has whittled down its list of potential Game of Thrones successor series.
At the outset, it was reported that the network was exploring five – count ’em, five – story pitches from a variety of top-tier scribes, including Jane Goldman (Kingsman) and George R.R. Martin himself. The former has made serious headway on her treatment (working title: ‘The Long Night’), given HBO has already cast Miranda Richardson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Toby Regbo, Georgie Henley, Alex Sharp, and Naomi Ackie.
And while that’s an incredibly exciting development, particularly as Thrones season 8 approaches its last hurrah, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that producer-director Bryan Cogman’s proposed series is effectively dead at HBO.
I’m definitely leaving. I was developing one of the successor shows with George. George has worked with a bunch of the writers, including Jane, whose show is being done [as a pilot]. My prequel show is not happening and will not happen. HBO decided to go a different way. I’m working with Amazon now and helping them out with their shows. So, it is a goodbye. I am done with Westeros. It’s wonderfully bittersweet… That’s one of the reasons why this episode was so important to me. It was a goodbye and a love letter to these characters and to this cast.
Cogman has decided to leave HBO for pastures anew – Amazon, to be specific – so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that his successor series has been quietly shelved. Besides, his pitch was just that: an idea that ultimately will never see the warm light of day.
Closer to home, Game of Thrones will wage the Battle of Winterfell this coming weekend, by which point the Night King and his undead army will lay siege to the Stark stronghold. It’s said to be the Westeros equivalent of Helm’s Deep, so don’t miss it.
