House of the Dragon, HBO‘s Game of Thrones prequel, will end after four seasons, according to the series co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal.
Condal said during a news conference Monday – a day after the second season’s finale aired – that the third series is in the writing process, Variety reported Monday.
Condal said that pre-production work on the series will continue this autumn, with a targeted production date of early next year.
The show’s first season ran 10 episodes, with the second season going eight. Asked how many episodes the third season would be, Condal said, ‘I haven’t had discussions with HBO about it.
‘I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from season two on.’
House of the Dragon , HBO ‘s Game of Thrones prequel, will end after four seasons, according to the series co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal. Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) is pictured during the show’s second season
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is played by Emma D’Arcy on the Game of Thrones prequel
Novelist George R.R. Martin, a co-creator of the Game of Thrones spinoff, said on his blog in October of 2022 that ‘it is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice’ to the story.
Game of Thrones, which is based on Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, had an eight-season run on HBO from 2011-2019.
The cable network is also working on an adaptation of Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It is another prequel to Game of Thrones, occurring 100 years before the events of the original series.
Condal on Monday explained why the HOTD season two finale that aired Sunday did not feature a storyline patterned after the Battle of the Gullet.
‘We we were trying to give the Gullet, which is arguably the most anticipated – well, I would say maybe the second-most-anticipated – action event of Fire & Blood, trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves,’ Condal said.
He noted that he and his creative team remain ‘building to that event,’ which he said ‘will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling of House of the Dragon.’
Condal said, ‘Based on what we know now, it should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off and we just wanted to have the time, the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans and in the way it’s deserved.’
Condal said that he and his collaborators ‘also wanted to build some anticipation toward’ the Battle of the Gullet within the storyline of the series.
Fans of the series, some in costume, were pictured in London for the show’s season two premiere in June
Series co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal, pictured in Paris in June, spoke about the show’s future in a news conference on Monday
‘I know everybody wants this to come out every summer,’ he said. ‘It’s just that the show is so complex that we’re really making multiple feature films every season.
‘So I apologize for the wait, but I will just say if Rook’s Rest and the Red Sowing are any indication, we’re gonna pull off a hell of a win with the Battle the Gullet in the future.’
Condal on Monday also spoke about the fate of a specific character, Otto Hightower (played by Rhys Ifans), who was seen in a quick glimpse on Sunday’s episode.
‘We were delighted to have Rhys reenter the story, and I will just say that the Otto Hightower tale has not yet come to an end,’ he said, declining to add any additional details.