HBO Officially Orders Game Of Thrones Prequel, First Details Revealed

The final season of Game of Thrones is almost in the can and its 2019 broadcast threatens to leave an alarmingly dragon-shaped hole in HBO’s schedule. But fear not, as though creator George R.R. Martin is yet to finish the book series, a prequel show developed by himself and Kingsman writer Jane Goldman looks like it’s going to get a pilot, with the smart money on a full season following close behind.

The project is one of an impressive five prequels in various stages of development – the others being helmed by Bryan Cogman, Carly Wray, Max Borenstein and Brian Helgeland. Word is that HBO is happy to give the writers as much time as they need to find a way to tell the complex history of Westeros, though President of Programming Casey Bloys also said that we should expect “anywhere from zero to five [projects to go into production] but probably more likely around one.”

Either way, this new show from Martin and Goldman sounds pretty tantalizing. The synopsis explains that it’s set thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones and is about the “descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour,” promising to reveal the “horrifying” secrets of Westeros, explain the origin of the White Walkers, go into the “mysteries of the East” and show us the mighty Starks of legend. If all goes to plan, it truly has the potential to be a fantastic companion piece to the show.

Setting it thousands of years in the past is also a smart move. While it necessarily means we’re going to be getting an entirely new cast, it also gives Goldman and Martin free reign to tell the stories they want to without contradicting the canon of the existing series.

Of course, we wouldn’t expect to hear much more about it until Game of Thrones has aired its last episode, as Bloys told Deadline back in January that he wants the show’s final season to be its final season, and not have it launch anything else. “I want it to stand as the finale of the greatest TV show of all time, I don’t want to do anything that infringes on that,” he said. That to me says we should be looking at a late 2020 release for the prequel, but as soon as we get something concrete, we’ll be sure to let you know.