Early rumors suggested HBO wouldn’t return to film in Spain for House of the Dragon as they did for the final four seasons of Game of Thrones, but we’re happy to report that’s not the case: this October, House of the Dragon will be filmed in Spain — and in previously used locations, too. That’s not all, however…
Via Los Siete Reinos, and as originally reported by local Spanish newspaper Hoy, we now know the Game of Thrones prequel will film in Cáceres and Trujillo, both of which stood for King’s Landing in season seven of the original series.
The old streets of Cáceres served most prominently as the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, specifically when Euron paraded the surviving Sands and his niece Yara as captives through the streets towards the Red Keep. For a brief time, Cáceres also appeared as Old Town, when Sam and Gilly left the city at the end of the season. Meanwhile, the Castle of Trujillo was used to depict the outer walls of King’s Landing as Jaime and Bronn oversaw the arrival of the Unsullied.
We don’t know what Cáceres and Trujillo will be used for this time, but a safe assumption would be that these medieval Spanish locations will stand for King’s Landing yet again. Old Town is another possibility, of course. We’ll know soon enough, as House of the Dragon will land in Spain this coming October!
The HBO production will stay in Spain for about three weeks on October, which, accounting for the usual pre-production, likely means a week or two of actual filming at most.
Before we let you go: according to Hoy the HBO production will move from Spain to neighboring Portugal, which would be a first for either production from the world of George R.R. Martin. For now, we have no details about where in Portugal House of the Dragon will film, or for how long, but we’ll be sure to tell you as soon as we know!
In the meantime, what do you think Cáceres and Trujillo will be used for? Is the obvious answer of King’s Landing enough for you, or can you think of anywhere else in Westeros or beyond that this story set during the Dance of Dragons may visit?
Hodor!
⚠️ Musical Interlude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVYYpNaSs2Y
– Toad the Wet Sprocket
Cool! It’s nice to have some new news on HotD 🙂
*final four seasons
Wow, that is an epic pic accompanying the article! Love it…good times! LOL
Ufff, seeing Elaria Sand and her daughter…that is a rough one. I know what she did was wrong in taking her vengeance for the death of Oberyn and that Cersei paid hace back in full, a tit for tat so to speak. But the cruelty still makes me cringe and is a testament to the show’s effectiveness. Plus I hate seeing Indira Varma suffer on screen…as she has on many an occasion sssion!
Ok…on that note (sad) music interlude time. I first heard this song via “Chuck”, a show I really liked and enjoyed and really miss, especially these days…
loco73,
”Plus I hate seeing Indira Varma suffer on screen…as she has on many an occasion sssion!”
I hate seeing Euron on screen for any reason. What a waste of screen time.
“…this October, House of the Dragon will be filmed in Spain — and in previously used locations, too. That’s not all, however…
The HBO production will stay in Spain for about three weeks on October, which, accounting for the usual pre-production, likely means a week or two of actual filming at most.
Before we let you go: according to Hoy the HBO production will move from Spain to neighboring Portugal…”
——
Re: Production in Spain for three weeks in October, 2021, followed by Portugal for as yet unknown duration:
Does anyone know how Spain and Portugal are faring with vaccination rates, mask mandates, case counts (including delta variant) and restrictions on public gatherings?
Call me Mr. Buzzkill: Especially with the access to vaccines and % of populations vaccinated varying country by country and potential international travel restrictions, I fear that the conditions that led to the cancellation of this year’s Con of Thrones could also delay HotD production indefinitely.
Even with strict safeguards and testing to protect the actors and crew during filming, protocols requiring quarantining could f*ck things up for everyone if even one crew member tests positive during production. This has already happened here in the U.S. with several sports teams forced to cancel and forfeit games because one or two players couldn’t be bothered to get vaxxed.
So, does anybody know how things are in Spain and Portugal now, and how they’re forecasted to be in October and November?
LOL…fair enough! By the way, and I’m not posting the link of a rival series here…🤓…but Amazon Prime has revealed the logo for their upcoming adaptation of “The Wheel Of Time” and confirmed that it’s a 2021 release (no fixed date yet)
Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about this…🥴…”The Wheel Of Time” is the first major fantasy saga that I started reading way back when in 1990. I kind of fell out around book eleven in the cycle. I’ve tried re-reading it over the years without much progress or ever actually finishing. I still think it is a good, solid series of books that was ahead of it’s time when it started in many aspects of storytelling and character development.
I really like and appreciate what Robert Jordan (pen name) created and accomplished with his work…and by extension Brandon Sanderson. I was bummed out when I found out how sick he was and consider his death a great loss to the literary community in general, but to the fantasy/sci-fi one in particular.
To my shame, over the years I started thinking less of him and about him (though I still have the whole “The Wheel Of Time” collection on my shelves), as I started reading and getting into Tolkien, Martin, Le Guin, Rowling, Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss (and his two and a half books), William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick, George Alec Effinger, Kim Stanley Robinson, Guy Gavriel Kay, S.A Correy (pen name) just to name a few (besides Jules Verne, HG Wells, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke and others from my childhood).
Now as I’ve said, I don’t know how to feel about this adaptation. I am not really invested as I was years ago in WoT, but based on the bits of info I’ve seen here and there I don’t have much confidence in Amazon doing justice to the novels, just as I don’t have confidence in the work they are doing with their long gestating LOTR series.
I really dislike and I’d even say hate, when the powers that be trying to bring these works to the screen (big or small…well with streaming…increasingly the small screen) go out of their way to retcon the lore, the storyline and the characters. I understand that these are adaptations, for goodness sake we spend most of our time here on this site and it’s threads talking about, debating and discussing the adaptations of a series that already aired and one that is upcoming, based off of another set of novels, ASOIF (and ASOIF adjacent books) in this case.
I get that changes are inevitable and need to be made (I guess most of us that are here do). I understand them especially when they make sense and work out for the best, actually perhaps enhancing the experience we have following the stories and characters we’ve come to be invested and interested in. Like it was the case with Peter Jackson for his LOTR trilogy, D&D for GOT (in as much as they could with the original source material available to them at the time) and recently for a more current show I like such as “Shadow And Bone” (which actually really improved on the books in a variety of ways).
What I dislike is when said changes are done for cheap applause, empty virtue signalling or shock value. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll venture watching Amazon’s adaptation of WoT…🤔 hmmmmm
Ten Bears,
And what a waste of the wonderful Pilot Aesbeck, Danish actor, Borgen, The Investigation.
Ten Bears,
Agreed. Casting and the actor totally botched Euron.
loco73,
”What I dislike is when said changes are done for cheap applause, empty virtue signalling or shock value. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll venture watching Amazon’s adaptation of WoT…🤔 hmmmmm”
Call me once bitten, twice shy: I’ve been let down enough by sanitized adaptations that borrow characters’ names and little else; or a series that starts off really strong before going off the rails.
Worst of all, a terrific young actress guest starred in S1 of “The Blacklist” as a mysterious figure; I thought she should’ve played the lead. Her name was Rachel Brosnahan. Sure enough, fast forward a few years and she’s winning Emmys as the lead in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
The biggest factor in my reluctance to invest my time in a new, unproven series: There are so, so many (already completed) shows I have never seen that are universally acclaimed as can’t-miss entertainment. For example, I’ve never seen a single episode of “The Wire,” “Breaking Bad,” “Stranger Things,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Star Trek: Picard,” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” That’s got to be hundreds of hours of hours of binge-watching right there.
It’s kind of hard to justify rolling the dice on a hyped new show that could turn out to be one-and-done, like “Vinyl.”
Points taken. Two things. One, for me “The Wire” remains one of the best shows ever made start to finish and from my point of view has nothing to prove, nor is it unproven. In fact it remains as close to having a perfect slice of visual storytelling as it gets. Of course that is matter of perspective and taste.
Second, I love, love “Penny Dreadful”. Where you see a mess of a show, I see one of the best I’ve ever seen. Never mind Eva Green’s I’d say monumental, LOL, performance, the rest of the cast is impeccable, the production values and the storylines are excellent. It was one of the most beautiful and visually striking shows I’ve seen….the word scrumptious comes to mind. I loved the score (still listen to it often). But I do agree that the ending was somewhat rushed. “Penny Dreadful” would have definitely benefited if not from another season, at least one extra episode for a tidier ending. “Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels” is an abomination I completely disavow! 🤓🤪 Ok, ok a bit overly dramatic, it sucked and I could only muster the energy for watching one episode. It only got worse after. Thankfully it was put out of its misery by being cancelled after just the one season, instead of being left outhere to limp around with it’s stunted corpse…yikes, that sounds bad…🥴🥺
To add to “Penny Dreadful”, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say (a very cliché) RIP to actress Helen McRory who played Madam Kali/Evelyn Poole on the show. She was also known for her roles in other shows such as “Peaky Blinders” and as Narcisa Malfoy in the “Harry Potter” movies. She was an accomplished stage, screen and movie actressamd had a much more extensive list of credits than what I mentioned . Married to actor Damian Lewis (“Band Of Brothers”, “Billions”, “Homeland”). She passed away from cancer on April 16, 2021. I think she was an excellent actress who improved anything and everything she was in, case in point “Penny Dreadful “. Definitely too young to pass away…but such is this blasted life…oftentimes cruel and always unpredictable…
loco73,
”Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels”is an abomination I completely disavow! 🤓🤪 Ok, ok a bit overly dramatic, it sucked and I could only muster the energy for watching one episode. It only got worse after. Thankfully it was put out of its misery by being cancelled after just the one season, instead of being left outhere to limp around with it’s stunted corpse…yikes, that sounds bad…
🥴🥺
I guess I’m glad I did not watch a single episode of it then.
Ten Bears,
Funny enough, Natalie Dormer as Magda and the actress who played Santa Muerte (Holly Death) Lorenza Izzo were about the only interesting aspect of the show.
loco73,
People probably know by now I wasn’t a fan of Penny Dreadful – but I’m not the TV police. I lost it at the seance scene.
loco73,
I thought “Penny Dreadful” pulled a Sansa-Rickon about-face with Mina.
Sansa went from “A monster has our brother! We have to save him!” to “Forget Rickon. He’s as good as dead.”
Isn’t that what happened to the quest to rescue the guy’s daughter from the monster in “Penny Dreadful’? That whole mission petered out, and Mina was toast.
(I stopped watching right around that time so I’m not sure how that played out, and I was long gone by the time the show was abruptly euthanized. I heard they slapped on a nihilistic, stupid finish that angered the fandom. Maybe I’m wrong.)
Winterry71,
I think the actor nailed Euron. The problem is that Euron is just a lame character.
⚠️ Musical Interlude
Dedicated to Dragon Queen Daenerys Targaryen or Queen Alicent in House of the Dragon
With the understanding that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYbx4Q0vGPU
I thought his first scene in “Home” showed promise. There was the right combination of mystery and menace.
It just fell apart from there, IMO. He started to come across as a poor man’s version of Captain Jack Sparrow or something.
Since we are offering opinions about other shows here now too:
Dark on Netflix is unbelievably awesome.
Top 3 show for me. And that is saying a lot.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been meaning to take a look. This show keeps coming recommended to me, but I haven’t had time to pay it the proper attention. Will do soon. One show I want to restart watching is David Fincher’s “Mind Hunter”. It was very interesting, but I fell off…time constraints again. I think it’s a really interesting show…
Ten Bears
Ten Bears,
It doesn’t look that good. There’s been a surge in cases over the last weeks due to the Delta variant. The good news is, at the moment we’re also the country that is vaccinating the most in the world (compared to population). It’s a race against time to get everyone vaccinated and prevent the new variants from spreading further. But is impossible to predict how things will be in October. Right now, masks continue to be mandatory, indoors + outdoors. Since last week, restrictions and curfews have been imposed again in districts where infections are rising. As for public gathering: I know small number of people are allowed to sit together at a restaurant table (4 or 6). Cinemas and other venues are open, but only at 1/3 of the capacity, maybe. And you definitely have to wear a mask when enttering/walking through a beach, which is always nice…
Lux,
”It doesn’t look that good. There’s been a surge in cases over the last weeks due to the Delta variant. The good news is, at the moment we’re also the country that is vaccinating the most in the world (compared to population)…”
Thanks for the update. I assume “the country” you’re in is Spain?
It looks like this damn 🦠 is going to be with us for a long time, so long as a substantial percentage of the population (here in the U.S.) refuses to get vaccinated.
In semi-related news, I just read that production on Maisie Williams’s series “Pistol” in the UK
has shut down because of a Covid outbreak.
Actually, I am in Portugal. Sorry, I forgot to make it clear. From what I know, the situation is not much different in Spain.
Interesting about the possibility of Old Town as we never really got to see it in GOT, apart from the one pic where Sam and Gilly arrived which was heavily CGI. If it’s Kings Landing – I have to assume that’s most likely – it needs to have a different feel to what we saw in GOT for me given it’s a hundred or more years in the past.
I’ll third that, felt he came across as very camp and a bit too much towards Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. He needed to be more menacing but never really pulled that off.
My wife is loving Dark although I’ve not seen it yet. MindHunter is one of the best shows on Netflix, just a shame that S3 seems to not be happening and the actors were released from their contracts.