War is certain, or so Damon Targaryen hopes.
The slyly arrogant prince conducts a strategic meeting in the torchlit darkness of Dragonstone Castle.
“I want patrols around the perimeter of the island,” declared the grim Demon, clad in all black with long silver-blonde hair. “Conscript the dragon riders, they are capable fighters…we have Syrax, Carax, and Tyrax, and…”
Smith, pause. What is the name of the fourth dragon again?
“Ah, hell!” Smith yells. “Hell no! I want to…shit!”
Actress Emma D’Arcy, who plays free-spirited princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, commiserated: “All dragons have weird names with Xes in them!”
“I literally got to the point where I thought I was naming Santa’s reindeer,” Smith admits.
The names of House of the Dragon’s characters—and its dragons definitely count as heroes—have been a source of discussion. HBO’s highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel is based on George RR Martin’s 700-page book Fire and Blood, which chronicles the history of House Targaryen and its dragon-riding royal family. The author strives for authenticity, and real-life dynasties tend to have many repetitive names and suffixes (after all, England has had 11 kings named Edward). So early in the writing process, Dragon showrunner Miguel Sapochnik indicated to his co-star Ryan Condall that they would have Princess Rhaenyra and Princess Rhaenys, for example, unless they started making changes to Martin’s mythology.
“You know we have to change some names,” Sapochnik told Kondal.
And Condal answered, “We cannot.”
Which firmly established that the production would take a staunchly loyal approach to adapting Martin’s complex world.
“I’ve been a fan of these books for 20 years,” Condal explains. “I was a Game of Thrones fan — I watched the pilot the night it aired on HBO and every episode after that. You can’t follow Thrones, it’s the Beatles. I’m starting as a fan to do what I want to see and I’m happy with what we’ve achieved. The Targaryens are like the Jedi in Star Wars where you hear about this time when they were abundant and powerful and they always wanted to see that. And now you get to.
But creating the first sequel to what was arguably the biggest hit of the 21st century was an epic battle almost as high-profile and dramatic as the show itself. Just figuring out which story to tell from Martin’s many Westeros and Essos books took years of painstaking effort and a host of talented writers and directors. Hundreds of millions were spent and several heads ended up on spikes.
And it all started the moment Game of Thrones began to end.
July 2016: HBO has just announced that Game of Thrones will end with an eighth and final season — agreeing to the creative plan of showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. The network’s strategy discussion, led by the company’s chief content officer, Casey Bloys, immediately turned to the next project based on Martin’s work.
The purpose was obvious. Mood, anxious.
HBO could try to build a Thrones franchise like Disney did with Marvel and Star Wars. Except HBO has never made a single spinoff series in its then-four-decade history—let alone an expansive creative universe—and some at the company worry that Thrones might be a one-off sensation. The series started as an underdog in 2011 and had a meteoric rise to become a ratings and pop culture phenomenon, as well as the most Emmy-winning drama of all time. To follow Thrones with failure would be very inconvenient and expensive. Yet the rewards…well, the rewards were potentially staggering: a stream of content from titles that could span decades and generate billions in revenue. It’s like that hypothetical investment question: would you rather have $1 million guaranteed or flip a coin for $1 billion? HBO decided to start flipping coins.
“They were understandably very nervous about the failure and failure of the original series,” one insider recalled of early development discussions. “I don’t think there was a lot of internal confidence [that Thrones was a franchise] because the show was so big and so important.” HBO executive vice president of drama Francesca Orsi recalls, “We saw it as an opportunity to keep telling great stories, but not necessarily try to replace Game of Thrones as the most epic show ever.”
Santa Fe-based Martin flew to Los Angeles to meet with HBO executives. He initially presented two ideas. The first was a series based on his relatively light-hearted Dunk and Egg novellas, which followed a knight wandering Westeros with a young squire. The second is called A Dance of Dragons, which chronicles the legendary civil war between Daenerys Targaryen’s ancestors, an affair that tore Westeros apart 180 years before the events of Thrones. “The Dance had all the intrigue, a race for the Iron Throne, murders, duels, big battles, 20 dragons — all that stuff,” says Martin.
George RR Martin Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
HBO passed on Dunk and Egg (at least initially). Executives liked Dance, but didn’t want to let the fate and fortunes of a potential franchise ride on an idea. “I wanted to give ourselves every chance to succeed,” says Bloys. “You don’t want to say, ‘We’re going to replace the biggest show of all time and it’s all going to rest on one script.’
The network researched Martin’s collective works and put together about 15 possible backstory concepts. Since Thrones showrunners Benioff and Weiss had refused to participate in any spinoffs, HBO met with a diverse set of writers. “We tried everything,” says Blois. “There weren’t too many outlandish ideas.”
Well, maybe one: A series concept that sounds like a superhero team for the legendary seven gods of Westeros as if they were real people. The premise followed Father, Smith, Warrior, etc. as they had adventures and came to be worshiped as gods. “It didn’t go very far,” says the insider dryly.
Five concepts were eventually selected and put into development. All are prequels that take place before the events of Thrones. This unprecedented roasting approach would cheekily become known online as the War of the Five Terrains.
One effort was a script about the destruction of the ancient Targaryen empire in Valyria by Max Borenstein (Kong: Skull Island), another was a take on the Dornish warrior queen Nymeria by Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential), and yet another — like many in this story, never before reported – was about Aegon’s conquest of Westeros and written by Rand Ravitch and Far Shariat (The Astronaut’s Wife). This script describes the William the Conqueror-inspired figure as a drunken rascal.
For Dance, HBO first turned to writer Carly Rae, who had experience writing scripts for dark fantasy dramas like Westworld and Watchmen. But Rey and Martyn couldn’t agree on when the story should begin amid the long and convoluted timeline of Targaryen history. “Wars often begin in times of peace,” Martin’s book reads, and it was important for the author to show this transition. But such a move would mean a series that spans generations, and how exactly would that work?
Then came Brian Cogman, co-executive producer of Thrones, who wrote several acclaimed episodes of the original series and understood the franchise as well as anyone. Insiders say his take on Dance was good, but HBO ultimately passed.
“At first HBO was like, ‘How can we subvert [Thrones]?” Sapochnik recalls. “Dance of Dragons felt like an obvious direct prequel. So I think they were less hot on it because it was like, “Well, who wants to watch Game of Thrones anymore?” And then the irony, of course, is: a lot of people.
Condal agrees, “HBO’s desire was not just to offer a sequel that’s about Game of Thrones. They wanted to do something so different that it would blow everyone’s minds. I think that’s why they chose The Long Night instead.’
Showrunners Miguel Sapochnik (left) and Ryan Condal. Photo: Dan Kennedy
In 2018, a year before Thrones aired its final series, HBO announced a pilot order for a potential successor: a show with the working title Bloodmoon, set years before the events of Thrones, during the legendary Age of Heroes and the winter apocalypse known as like The Long Night. Its showrunner, Jane Goldman, has had considerable success creating acclaimed R-rated genre hits, with credits such as Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
According to Orsi, Bloodmoon won the contest on merit. “Bloodmoon really stood out as different, with unique world-building,” says Orsi. “Tonally, it seemed very mature and sophisticated and intelligent, and at its center was a topical conversation about disenfranchisement in the face of colonialism and religious extremism.”
Except Martin had only posted about eight lines of text for the show’s time period, leaving Goldman with little to build on. “Bloodmoon was a very difficult task,” says Martin. “We are dealing with much more primitive people. There were no dragons yet. A lot of the pilot revolved around a southern house marrying a northern house, and that went into the whole story of the White Walkers.”
Martin made his concerns clear to HBO, and an insider admits, “Having a show that’s pure fiction and George scratching his head at different times was unsettling at times.”
A cast was assembled, led by Naomi Watts. Huge new sets were built. A Bloodmoon pilot was shot for a whopping $30 to $35 million.
And…
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