First Among Prequels

hen it came to finding a successor to , HBO didn’t put all its dragon eggs in one basket. Back in 2017, the network put five potential spin-off shows intos and writer Jane Goldman (below) – even made it to the pilot stage. Set around 8,000 years before , it featured an all-star cast (including Naomi Watts, John Simm and Miranda Richardson), and would reportedly have depicted the legendary Long Night, when the First Men and the Children Of The Forest teamed up to take down the White Walkers. As it turned out, HBO decided not to go any further with the project – “Overall it did not quite gel,” said HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys – but they did greenlight direct to series, even though it hadn’t been part of the original quintet. “This one was late to the game in the ‘successor show’ process,” admits Condal. “When I got involved, hadn’t been published yet. George had sort of developed it in secret and then he kind of dropped it on the world in surprise in late 2018. But this particular story was the thing that he wanted to do. There were things that HBO was interested in and there were things that George was interested in, and there were things that George was interested in that HBO wasn’t interested in. So I think it was just about finding those places of overlap. HBO was very interested in doing a Targaryen dynasty show, and George was very interested in this particular era. was the place where they both lined up and agreed.”