The subject of where the world of Westeros will head when Game of Thrones is over has been a lingering question in the minds of fans for the past few years now. Will season 8 be the end of the road or can we look forward to a sequel- or a prequel? With George R.R. Martin’s “wealth of material” as a resource, there’s a stack of possibilities.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys this week at the Westworld premiere in Hollywood and found out whether he thinks there’s a future in Westeros.
“There are so many properties and areas to go to,” Bloys tells THR. “For us, it’s about finding the right take with the right writer.”
At the moment it’s not even clear who would be taking charge if HBO did proceed with another foray into Westeros. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, showrunners of Game of Thrones, have been vocal about stepping away and taking on fresh projects after season 8. But Bloys hasn’t completely written off their participation in a new Martin-based work for HBO.
He tells THR, “It’s a big, big commitment for them, not just their creative force, but also their family life. They’re gone for months at a time. So it’s a big, big thing. But should we find a property that makes sense as a spinoff or a prequel — whatever you want to say — I would not expect them to do it, because they’re going to need to decompress for a good amount of time, but it would certainly be nice to have their involvement in some way. At what level? I have no idea.”
Apparently Bloys also says that HBO is not yet “actively investigating where to take the franchise next,” so perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Bloys tells THR, “There are things that sound interesting, but at this point, we have no writers assigned or anything like that. In a perfect world, Game of Thrones would keep going, and we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this!”
With Game of Thrones barreling toward its endgame, and HBO having almost no other hits on its hands, I’d be surprised if they genuinely weren’t investigating a spin-off already. But I can’t blame Bloys for playing it close to the vest for the time being. Only time will tell if they’re proceeding, and who will be leading the way with new stories from Westeros.
Oh I’m still hopeful for a Roberts Rebellion spinoff! So much potential and seeing the doomed romance of Lyanna and Rhaegar would be amazing
Hodor!
If they do a spin-off I hope they do anything but Robert’s Rebellion.
Nerwen Aldarion,
That’s just about the least likely spinoff, seeing as the show has already covered (or will cover, one imagines) the key parts of that story.
“Better Call Bronn”
So I finally just began reading The World of Ice & Fire and DANG, there is sooooo much out there to create spin-offs with. SO MUCH!
I would much rather see a story set in the same world, but not recycling characters who are already familiar to us. I don’t need to see any more Young Ned than was necessary for the R + L = J reveal, nor any Young Robert. I’d much prefer some Dunk & Egg stories, or tales out of other periods in Westerosi history, or even visits to other lands and continents not yet visited (just no more Meereen, thanks).
By way of analogy, I was not much impressed by ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ (granted, partly because Rowling didn’t write it). But I am really excited about ‘Fantastic Beasts.’ Yeah, it’ll likely have a few cameos from known characters, like a young Dumbledore or Grindelwald or Bathilda Bagshot; but mostly it’s going to unfold a whole new aspect and era of the Wizarding World. That’s where GRRM’s world provides ample room to play as well, in my view.
I would love to see the Dunk & Egg stories bought to life in some form. Pull any chapter from the Targ history though and you have the makings of an epic short series. The biggest enemies of the Targs were the Targs themselves
Oooh!!! I would LOVE to see the Dunk & Egg stories!!
I hope with the spinoff HBO takes a different approach to the writing process than most other series. Don’t just write a pilot, film it, then if it’s good to go, write the rest of the episodes in 4 months. Any Game of Thrones series should be huge and sprawling with a lot of characters and storylines. They should really give the writers as much time as needed to write the first season, and allow them to come up with an outline for season 2 and 3 before getting the wheels in motion on the production.
I also hope they just do something completely original instead of doing something like Dance of Dragons where we already know the outcome.
i kind of find it hard for them to be able to do Roberts rebellion. You have to many characters from the current story that would have to be recast as younger actors. I feel like the younger actors would never be able to give the performance that people are used to seeing there favorite characters give. I’d still watch tho lol
Flayed Potatoes,
Thank you for this.
Dunk and Egg is perfect spinoff material. Same established world, new characters, new stories, but in familiar settings and familiar culture. No need for time to explain where they are, or what the culture is about. It will be known going in by the viewer. Also perfect spinoff material because it will be a bit lighter. Some won’t like this, but this is really the way all successful spinoffs have gone. Lighter and softer around the edges than the original has always been a good template for spinoffs in film.
The Dance of Dragons comes off to me as more of a 90-120 minute movie than a regular series. Dunk and Egg is where it’s at.
The game of thrones spinoff will be called Reign, and will focus on the reign of Westeros King Jon Snow and his wife Queen Sansa. Could get at least 3 seasons of that. Looking forward to it.
Poor Jon! Everyone wants him to hook up with a family member one way or another.
It just baffles me that people are interested in so much prequel stuff. Especially since we know the outcome for *every* character. (not like Dunk & Egg where there is a lot of wiggle room)
I disagree
There are several battles that we certainly won’t see. We also are not going to see the political maneuverings going on, the planning for the war, the Knight of the Laughing tree etc
At most we may get a scene from Harrenhal (but that has already been discussed, so may not be necessary) perhaps a glimpse of Robert killing Rhaegar too.
But the show has always been more about talking about the past as opposed to showing it. The only glimpses we have seen of Roberts Rebellion were in relation to explaining Jon’a true heritage. That’s over now, more likely any more glimpses about the past will be in relation to defeating the White Walkers
In other words, there is a big chance we won’t ever see anything else of Roberts Rebellion which means losing a HUGE chunk of the backstory.
So no, actually we haven’t and probably won’t cover much. I dare anyone to explain exactly how Robert came to power using just what we have seen in the show. We’ve been told and seen so very little. The only battle mentioned by name was Trident, most viewers have no idea how difficult it was to gather support to fight the Targaryans. Ashara Dayne has not even been mentioned as far a I can recall. There is so much people are missing
Lars,
While Dunk and Egg is interesting it’s much the same, we do know what happens to them, dead at Summerhall.
And while it would be cool to see new characters I also think a lot of people really want these huge blank spaces filled. The Rebelliom has been spoken of so much, it’s like the Star Wars mythology. They spoke so much about the time before (literally starting in the middle) that everyone wanted to see and know more about how everyone got to that point.
Now I certainly hope the quality of a Roberts Rebellion is better then the Star Wars prequels but the want and need to see and learn more is there.
Sorry,not to rain on anybody´s parade and I know I´m a minority here but I don´t see any prequels or sequels happening 🙁
Call the series “Fire and Blood”. Model it after the Targaryen history and bam- an epic, sprawling history that can of itself out by going in depth.
Remember, we read the stories as histories. GoT is adapted from novels, so if “Fire and Blood” was as in-depth the conquest alone could take up an entire season.
I think we are going to see Ashara this season as well as parts of the tourney and rebellion. Only important snippets but enough to answer questions. If we have a million questions so would Bran and he is currently hooked up to the information superhighway weirwood.
Robert’s rebellion seems most likely, Dunk & Egg would be awesome but GRRM has only written 3 short stories not enough material. Aegons Conquest or Dance of Dragons would be brilliant but keep Benioff & Weiss the hell away from it.
In my opinion they can’t match the popularity of this series with stories of Robert’s rebellion or even Dunk and Egg. Simple prequels like that just don’t have ‘the stuff’ that ASoIaF has. Think about it… we’ve all been on here during this period between seasons discussing what happens next – theories, speculations and such. A prequel eliminates all of that. Sure, the majority of GoT was done covering existing written material but everything remaining until the end is anybody’s guess. Those mentioned stories are periods in time of The Story that may be interesting to the biggest fans, but to the casual viewer are they all that exciting? “We” would like to see a full adaptation of such events that are important set-ups for ASoIaF. To others, it might feel a little too stereotypical sword & board, lacking in magical fantasy story telling.
If it’s done with similar production values I’m thinking the best prequel they could do that could equal GoT’s popularity and sustain it would be surrounding the events of the in-story history of the Dance of the Dragons, the conquering of and Targaryen civil war over Westeros. In other words, it has to be exciting to watch if all of the questions about resolution have already been eliminated.
Personally prequels are almost never as interesting, fun or exciting simply because I know where the story goes, who lives, who dies. LotR and Star Wars are obvious examples. Is it possible to do a post-ASoIaF series???
Comment of the year 😀
The problem with a spinoff is that Game of thrones has covered so many genres/ways of storytelling already. It’s been political intrigue, character study, road movie, action flick, eye candy, horror, fantasy, comedy. Any of these could become the focal point(s) of a series set in some past, or against the backdrop of some Great House – but there’d be always something lacking.
That’s allright if you’re not looking for the next big hit, but if you are…I agree with people who say too many people will be disappointed. I’d find myself a different book/world to mine for story. Plenty of them out there, and GoT has paved the way for the fantasy ones 🙂
Hah! I would watch it.
Lmao!
Technically it would have to be “Better Raven Bronn” no? 🙂 .
The adventures of strong Belwas
Like Star Wars and Star Trek … comic book franchises ,,, Ice and Fire could be the gold egg laying goose. HBO might take this seriously , I know it’s not their MO but the competition from Netflex, Amazon (GOOGLE gona get into this?) … is stiff. Off center visual drama is doing well these days, Stranger Things, Man in a High Castle (!), Fargo, The Expanse … people are looking for something different.
So way not involve Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill? , at this point they known how do to Westeros stuff as well as their mentors.
The problem with the Dunk and Egg stories is that there’s just three of them. One of which, wasn’t really up to par with the other material that GrrM has written. I’m talking about the Sworn Sword. It’s just too much vanilla, while the Hedge Knight and the Mystery Knight have all the makings of GoT-greatness with conspiracies, Targaryen’s, Blackfyre’s, shady characters and turncloaks, Bloodraven.. Look, you can’t make a 10-episode season with any of the novella’s, heck probably not even a six-episode mini-series unless they stretch them.
So in total, you have two great novella’s from which you can maybe make two mini-series, six episodes a piece. I know that GrrM has all these plans for Dunk and Egg, but he really just needs to finish four things and he can retire for all I care:
1. – ASOIAF: The Winds of Winter.
2. – ASOIAF: A Dream of Spring.
3. – Dunk and Egg: The She-wolves of Winterfell
4. – Dunk and Egg: The Tragedy of Summerhall
That’s literally all he needs to deliver. Maybe one or two Dunk and Egg novella’s if there’s more Targ/Blackfyre-material, and one set at King’s Landing during the time where Dunk is made into a Kingsguard, but that would be bonus material for all I care.
So finish Game of Thrones, and give me four-to-six mini-series of Dunk and Egg. Thank you.
Sadly, I think George will only finish just one out of the four…
I didn’t think that a sequel/prequel would be happening, but frankly reading between the lines of what Bloys is saying, it would appear to me that a follow-up is pretty much inevitable…(In particular if Westworld doesn’t deliver the ratings HBO is looking for, I would think)
I don’t care about a spinoff tbh.
I’ve been reading these damn books since 1998, and I wanna see the story end… Whether on screen or on page, I am ready to see how it ends… (and I am now of the camp that believes GRRM will never finish ADOS sadly)
Maybe once we get there, I can start thinking about spinoffs, but for now… Cersei vs Dany is what is on my mind 🙂
HBO might have another potential hit with Westworld. The show looks very promising.
Yeah. The only characters who wouldn’t need recasting would be Blackfish, Tywin and Pycelle, and it’s not like they were the protagonists of RR.
You know GOT has been a great phenomenon, but I would hate to see it get exploited just for the sake of having a “hit.” Time to move on HBO. Dunk and Egg was great, but really? Let’s NOT go back to Robert’s Rebellion or the Dunk and Egg stories. If HBO were to do anything I’d prefer to see Westeros in the future. What happened AFTER the dust settling from the long winter? I’d love to see the Stark family (if any survive this) children taking over Winterfell. Not Jon or Sansa or company, but maybe their GROWN children and the future Westeros.
Sorry to be a downer, but the “past is written and the ink is dry”. Time to move forward not backward HBO.
I’m sure this comment will great some sort of controversy, but I’ve loved GOT and just am pretty sure I’ll be ready to move on and if there’s a spinoff I don’t want to go backwards. Sorry
There’s not enough material for Dunk & Egg, not even for a mini-series. And it also faces the same problem of Robert’s Rebellion: there’s no dragons. I mean there is almost no fantasy elements, could you imagine a GoT spin-off without dragons? I don’t, and I never even liked anything about Essos, neither book or show.
The two most promising candidates are Dance of Dragons, and Aegon’s Conquest. And while Aegon’s sounds really cool, GRRM has barely written about that.
I remember seeing somewhere that GRRM had said that it was more likely that made-for-TV-movies would be made, or perhaps regular movies – I can’t for the life of me remember where I saw it – maybe his blog?
I do know that there’s a petition being passed around to submit to HBO about doing a prequel to GoT (I signed it), and that there are currently thousands of signatures on it. I seriously doubt that HBO is going to let their cash cow slip away so easily …
Ser Onion Knight,
They would be lucky to have benioff and Weiss do it… but unfortunately they’re done after this
secrettargaryen,
You think so?
I’m gonna check it out and I’m curious to see how they do.. curious to see how many people tune in ratings wise
If it were to be a “spin off”, I hope they go for the “Dance of the Dragons” (which will be terrible expensive) o any of the Blackfyre rebellions. And I hope they don´t overkill it.
I have no interest in watching a prequel or “postquel”… they seldom work.
I really don’t care about spin off.
I have always maintained that the chances for a sequel, prequel, or spinoff are much less than a lot of the online fandom thinks. Let’s go through the problems with the various ideas bandied about.
Robert’s Rebellion – This is probably the one most commonly brought up. First issue, by the time GOT is finished we will know everything of significance about this. Sure, you could add new twists, but by necessity they would be minor and of little consequence. Plus, just remember the complaints people had about Battle of the Bastards being predictable, and now apply that to the entire series. Whether people like to admit it or not, the twists and turns of the story are a big draw of the show and books. This wouldn’t exist for RR. Another issue is that I can only see two seasons being made out of it (the build up to the war with season one ending in Rickard and Brandon’s deaths and then season two for the war), but I don’t see most characters having enough material for two seasons. Jaime kills the Mad King. That is the only important thing he does. Does that really deserve two seasons of build up? Tywin only comes in at the very end. Robert does what in the first season exactly? After Lyanna and Rhaegar supposedly run away together, we wouldn’t see them again until the end. Would Ned be the only major character, because all the others either do very little or disappear for long amounts of time? And as some have already pointed out, the people who get cast as younger versions of the characters will inevitably get compared to the older actors.
Dunk and Egg – I think this one has the best chance of being made for the same reason that it would never be nearly as successful as GOT: much, much smaller scale. It is basically Hercules or Xena without the camp. Its much smaller scale hurts it in that it will never have as broad of a draw as GOT. GOT has a little bit of everything, whereas D&E loses a lot of the stuff that drew viewers into the main show. Another problem is that there is very little connection to the main story. I keep telling people that most individuals who are watching GOT are not watching it for GRRM’s world but for these particular characters in this particular story. Doing a different story in the same world with almost no connection to the stuff we have seen in the main narrative is not as much of a draw for viewers as some like to think. Finally, it would be yet another case of HBO having to finish GRRM’s story for him.
Dance of Dragons – On the upside it would have politics and dragons. On the downside it focuses almost entirely on the Targs (almost nothing with the Starks) and has too many dragons. Sure, GOT can splurge a bit on dragons now, but it took years for us to get to this point. There is also that lack of connection with the main story I mentioned earlier.
As for sequels, we are likely ending this story with some apocalyptic level stuff. Where do you go from there?
No one seems to mention The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens , how about as a mini series?
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Thank you.
Also, as someone who watched the show first, then read the books, I can only say this much:
1) I watch this show for the characters, not the world. Any prequel/sequel/spin-off that doesn’t include GoT characters already loses points.
2) GRRM hasn’t even finished his master piece, ASOIAF, yet. I shudder to think how long it will take him to finish the rest of his Westeros-related works. Certainly too long for TV.
3) Where I come from, there is a saying: “You should stop when things are at their best/most beautiful.” I feel GoT will be reaching its prime by season 8 and I find it really, really hard to imagine that anything Westeros that comes after that will be able to live up to GoT standards.
So… no… zero interest in prequels here.
So they get an interview with Bloys and ask about spin offs instead of a Season 7 premiere date?
Nedric dayne,
YAssss!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3815868/Kit-Harington-shares-hug-star-Sophie-Turner-s-body-double-set-Game-Thrones-Northern-Ireland.html
Kit and Sophie’s body double on set.
Seriously…..what could they be filming?
Jack Bauer 24,
Don’t you think it’s a bit early for a season 7 premiere date… come on now lol
Flayed Potatoes,
Maybe that’s not her body double though..
I don’t trust dailymails claims hahaha
I mean yeah she does resemble Sophie.. but I don’t know
Flayed Potatoes,
https://www.instagram.com/p/BK_AWGlDyoq/
Sophie took a picture with a fan in London today, so I don’t think it is her double after all.. Although I have no idea how things works, maybe she hasn’t been needed at all and the stand-in was enough?
Sundae,
So confusing..
Maybe she’s a young Cat
Sundae,
They seem very familiar with each other and I assume Sophie would have had the same body double for multiple seasons.
Or maybe they’re filming a scene where they’re riding horses (I read somewhere Sophie was allergic to them). Or they could be filming a scene where Sansa doesn’t have any lines (like the one where Jon and Tormund recruited the Wildlings).
Dee Stark,
Who would you trust more: Littlefinger or The Daily Mail? 😛
Flayed Potatoes,
Littlefinger ahahaha
Flayed Potatoes,
I think they are filming the high stakes scene that was mentioned in the casting call. What exactly is at stake is the question.
Regarding the body double/ not body double, maybe the scene requires Sansa to be in the background, which is why they did not need Turner herself.
Kit’s familiarity with her seems to suggest a body double whom he has known previously, than a new actress imo.
Sundae,
The DM article doesn’t say the photos are from today, as far as I can see. Indeed, the last batch were supposedly from right after the Emmys, but were released well afterward. Though it also states in-text that the double has been “filming scenes as Sansa”, so if that’s true and not just supposition, it would indicate that the scene just needs Sansa as an out-of-focus background character and they didn’t think they needed to bother having the actress around for that. It’s not unheard of, by any means.
Flayed Potatoes,
She is allergic to horses, but she has ridden them before when need be in seasons 5 and 6.
ghost of winterfell,
I agree. I’m curious to see what the scene is. Any ideas?
Flayed Potatoes,
Not really. I think the scene requires Jon, Brienne and Pod to be in armor (based on the fact that they were wearing cooling tubes) , so an action based scene is my guess. Beyond that, no idea.
I believe that the Dunk & Egg stories could actually reach a much wider audience than GoT has, because they could be made into a family-friendly series. That might disappoint some fans who watch GoT for the nudity, but it would bring in younger generations of viewers whose parents won’t let them watch GoT. And I know quite a few adults who are intrigued by all the talk about GoT, who love period dramas with high production values, but refuse to watch because of the explicitness of the violence, or who started watching and then stopped because they couldn’t stand scenes like Joffrey making Ros beat the other prostitute. The dicier bits of the Dunk & Egg saga, like Dunk begetting descendents, can happen offscreen.
What I have in mind is something along the lines of the TV series of the 1960s that were based on Robin Hood and Ivanhoe, or the various mini-series aired on the weekly Walt Disney program, which started with events from the extant stories and then went on to imagine “the further adventures of” once a core group of characters had been established. While there are only finished versions of three Dunk & Egg stories, I believe that GRRM has said that he has plans for about a dozen in mind. Producing a show wouldn’t necessarily have to wait for them to be published; he could just provide outlines for a regular staff of writers (hopefully more than two this time) to work on. Beyond that point, they could come up with their own stories to fill in the gaps in the years, with GRRM doing an occasional consult/script approval to make sure they’re not creating plotholes for the windup of the story.
I think a full season, maybe multiple seasons, could be made just covering the period when Egg is still a young squire, using the same actor to play him. If it’s a big hit, then they could recast and go on to Aegon’s adulthood with a sequel series aimed at a somewhat more mature audience who could handle the Tragedy at Summerhall, once they’re ready to wrap up the final season.
Although I love dragons, I can also see how dragons could be overused in a movie or TV series, to the point where they lose their impact, stop seeming “special.” I don’t think that their presence is essential to make a show set in Planetos highly entertaining.
AlexG,
It’s a big marketing opportunity off the back of a supremely successful series. Whatever gets chosen, there will be interest. They just need to decide what may work best. Everyone has different views on which period of Westeros history deserves a spin off but no matter which one they could go with, there remains potential for an awful lot that is not actually known by just reading the back history to be played out on screen and include surprises. People like to see the written word portrayed visually. LOTR and the Hobbit are testament to that.
Firannion,
I’m with you on this (as usual). I want some one off stories. Jump all over the place with new characters and non connected stories. I used the Arabian Nights example before. Have some westerosi kid getting a different bed time story every week…like The Princess Bride x 10!
They could do Age of Heroes. As long as they consult with GRRM they can pretty much write anything since that whole era is basically a big blur, and if they use the right framing (say, by having it being A Telling of the History of the Age of Heroes by Maester So-and-So) they can even get away with it not being 100% canon and being retconned later. Even within the same series (I guess Maester Someone-Else-Entirely refutted that part!).
Counterpoint: should be High Magic and thus pretty much probably over-budget for a spinoff.
Otherwise I think the best thing would be anthology seasons (a la AHS/True Detective) where the story of one season and that of the next are separate, which would allow to do Dunk & Egg, Robert’s Rebellion, Doom of Valyria, Dance of Dragons, etc etc, even where the material is sparse, and not have anybody get tired of the setting and characters.
Westworld is the GOT spinoff no one saw coming.
As long as it’s not mainly based on the Targaryen family, and DRAGONS DRAGONS DRAGONS! I’ll be happy.
I really hope I like Westworld. I need another good show to watch between GoT seasons. Going OT, but I also hope Timeless is good. Both of those are intriguing to me, but Timeless being on NBC makes me a bit wary.
Sophie’s in London as is Alfie. I think Liam is in Syria right now. I’m not sure how much is actually being filmed and I have no idea why Sophie’s double is getting so much work.
The Dunk and Egg stories would be perfect. Light, colorful, and each season could be as little as 4-5 episodes if they wanted to minimize the time commitment. Not to mention, GRRM wants to keep the stories going all the way to Summerhall. So an extended time gap would be the perfect time to change the casting from young Egg to medium Egg.
Please please please, Dunk and Egg!
That would be so good on television, and that would also be the only way to learn how the story ends.
The Children
Story begins as the children of the forest see the first andals arriving. Seasons show how the family’s took power, how the magic began, the wall, the first batch of white walkers, etc.
Far enough removed that people know the names but have no expected outcomes for the characters. Close enough to the story to keep everyone salivating.
I do like this idea the only thing is they don’t have material for this time period. We know about bits and pieces but it’s not like what they had to work with for Game of Thrones. That would e awesome to see though I would watch it ?
But do they have the rights to anything else besides the story of A Song of Ice and Fire?? Has GRRM given them free reign over this entire universe?? I don’t think so… he shouldn’t be taken out of the equation … His opinion matters on what happens next, if he says no, or if he simply doesn’t like the new HBO writers, than that might be it.
HBO shouldn’t put too much hope you “Westworld”…it’s a pretty and well stylized visual parade, but empty, vain and offering little to no calories. Much like fast food. It smacks of exactly what plagued “Vinyl”. Style with no substance attached. Too bad because I thought I might actually enjoy it.
Some of the best new shows of the year were rather delivered by HBO’s bastard sister network Cinemax in the form of “Outcast” and “Quarry”…
Ohhh I would be thrilled if they decided to make a Robert’s Rebellion spin-off. But it would be so sad and tragic.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if I want them to do it. I mean, I was super excited when the whole ToJ scene came out, but the actress they picked to play Lyanna was such a disappointment I ended up with a bitter taste in the end. If they did a spin-off and hired the same girl, well.. I would definitely not feel comfortable with the actress, and I’m not even sure if I would watch it, since she’s one of my fav characters. What if they did the same thing to other characters? Idk… It’s complicated.