Everything we know about HBO’s Game of Thrones spinoff shows – The Verge

Game of Thrones is getting another prequel, and its plot sounds very familiar

2023-04-12T14:31:32-04:00

The Game of Thrones franchise is getting a new entry on Warner Bros. Discovery's newly-announced Max streaming service. The new prequel, called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: the Hedge Knight, has been rumored for some time, but it wasn't clear which part of the ample Game of Thrones lore it would borrow from.

At today's HBO Max rebranding event, HBO head Casey Bloys confirmed that the new show has been ordered straight to series and would focus on Dunk and Egg. In the world of Game of Thrones, Dunk is a famous knight, and Egg is his squire, both of whom travel the land righting wrongs.

A century before @GameofThrones, there was Ser Dunca …

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In its finale, House of the Dragon became a worthy Game of Thrones successor

2022-10-25T10:30:00-04:00

Emma D’Arcy as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. | Image: HBO

In its earliest episodes, House of the Dragon sometimes stumbled and often felt like a project that owed its existence to HBO's hunger for a new hit rather than an understanding of what made Game of Thrones compelling in the first place. But in its season 1 finale, House of the Dragon proved itself to be a worthy Game of Thrones successor and something kind of like a dragon egg - a surprising gift that needed time, heat, and just the right kind of intensity to become truly fantastic.

Game of Thrones had the luxuries of time, space, and novelty working in its favor when it first premiered back in 2011 and introduced a new audience to the Son …

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Here’s why you couldn’t see anything on House of the Dragon

2022-10-03T18:27:04-04:00

This still is not from last night’s episode, which is one reason you can see what is happening. | Image: HBO

Things got dark on House of the Dragon last night as characters stole dragons and other characters made super incestuous life choices. And all of it was done under the cover of darkness, leading many viewers wondering if their TVs were busted.

But your TV is not busted. Your TV is a victim of the episode's director, Miguel Sapochnik. The man can presumably see in the dark because this is the second time he's directed an episode in the Game of Thrones franchise cast in such darkness people questioned their own eyes.

Back in 2019, Sapochnik directed "The Long Night," a harrowing hour of TV where the many characters of Game of Thrones gathere …

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House of the Dragon season 2 is a go for HBO

2022-08-26T11:30:17-04:00

Paddy Considine as Viserys I Targaryen and Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra Targaryen. | Image: HBO

Though House of the Dragon's only just premiered, HBO's already making it quite clear that the Game of Thrones prequel is here to stay, at least for a while.

Today, HBO announced that Ryan Condal and George R.R. Martin's House of the Dragon has been renewed for a second season of stories all about Westeros' infamous family of inbred dragon riders. In a statement about the renewal, HBO executive vice president of programming Francesca Orsi sang House of the Dragon's praises and expressed confidence in the ability of the creative team behind the show to tell compelling stories.

"Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and …

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HBO calls House of the Dragon its biggest premiere ever, with nearly 10 million US viewers

2022-08-22T19:02:55-04:00

House of the Dragon | Image: HBO

Despite glitches for some people trying to watch via Fire TV Sticks, HBO announced that the first episode of its Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon recorded the network's biggest premiere of all time, recording 9.986 million viewers across linear and HBO Max streaming on Sunday night in the US alone.

The original Game of Thrones series closed out its run with 13.7 million live viewers on linear channels for the finale in 2019, clocking over 19 million views with the addition of streaming and video-on-demand numbers. According to HBO, ahead of the Dragon premiere, interest in the original series - with the entire series now availabl …

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House of the Dragon premiere crashes HBO Max streaming, mostly on Fire Sticks

2022-08-21T22:00:26-04:00

Besides unreleased and disappearing content, there have been plenty of complaints about the HBO Max streaming apps since they launched. Still, they've generally held up well under the stress of premieres for content like Tenet, Wonder Woman, The Matrix, or Westworld, but for HBO there may not be anything like a Game of Thrones premiere.

Tonight's debut of the show's spinoff, House of the Dragon, is the first taste of a new GOT experience inside HBO Max, and while many people trying to stream the premiere episode are watching without a problem, others said the app crashed on them, or froze up once it got past the pre-show teaser trailer.

Ba …

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House of the Dragon is a grim remix of an already gruesome song you’ve heard before

2022-08-19T07:00:00-04:00

Milly Alcock as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Paddy Considine as King Viserys I Targaryen. | Image: HBO Max

House of the Dragon, HBO Max's new Game of Thrones prequel from Ryan Condal and George R.R. Martin, is a series that understands how fascinating it can be when epic fantasies explore the idea of history rhyming with itself across space and time. But in its attempt to enrich the world of A Song of Ice and Fire by echoing the narrative melodies that shaped Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon falls into the trap of retreading ground that's beyond familiar and mistakenly assuming that its connections to a larger franchise are enough to make it interesting.

Set some 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, House of the Dragon tells the …

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The new trailer for HBO’s House of the Dragon has the blonds out in force

2022-07-20T14:29:41-04:00

HBO finally dropped a newer and longer trailer for its Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, and you will not be shocked to learn the trailer is full of dragons and also plenty of Targaryens with their tell-tale white blond tresses.

The new show premieres on August 21st on HBO (streaming on HBO Max) and is a prequel set immediately before a civil war spun out of competing heirs in House Targaryen. In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (and HBO's Game of Thrones), this civil war spells the end of House Targaryen, which is weakened by the infighting and eventually nearly snuffed out just before Game of Thrones. The series is based on T …

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Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon premieres August 21st

2022-03-30T11:43:22-04:00

The long-in-the-making series is nearly here. | Image: HBO

HBO's upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, will debut on HBO and HBO Max on August 21st. The company announced the date Wednesday with a picture of what appears to be a hatching dragon egg - which hopefully means we'll see at least one of the terrifying beasts in the upcoming show.

August 21. #HouseoftheDragon pic.twitter.com/2IQHsDqv39
- Actually HBO Max (@StreamOnMax) March 30, 2022

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's 2019 book Fire and Blood and is focused on, as the name suggests, House Targaryen. It's set 200 years before the events of the hugely popular Game of Thrones, which featured Daenerys Targar …

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House of the Dragon, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, won’t premiere until 2022

2020-01-15T17:47:33-05:00

Game of Thrones fans excited for House of the Dragon - the upcoming prequel series HBO announced late last year - should prepare to settle in for a bit of a wait. According to HBO's president of programming Casey Bloys, the series likely won't air until "sometime in 2022," via Deadline.

Bloys wouldn't offer any more details than that, save to say that writing for the series is underway, and that there were no casting details to announce yet. He also emphasized that despite the fact that HBO had several other Game of Thrones successors in the works, all focus right now is on House of the Dragon. "There are no other blinking green lights or a …

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