Earlier today an enterprising source in Northern Ireland sent us a quick pic snapped from the set of the Game of Thrones prequel pilot being filmed in Belfast at the moment, giving us a glimpse at the new logo being used. Our friend came through again, sending Watchers on the Wall the rest of the photos from their visit to Titanic Studios, giving us a look at actors, sets, and behind the scenes crews at work, confirming the rumors across the internet about the filming to come!
Several of the individuals in the photos couldn’t be identified but it’s still great to get a look at the hair and costuming. Secretly praying that’s Miranda Richardson below with her back to us, but I can’t truly say. Up at the top of the post, I’m really intrigued by the collection of rusty armor. There’s something so arresting about it, visually.
This fella has his back to the camera but our friend who sent us the photos believes it’s Toby Regbo. I spent more time than is normal looking at photos of his ears, and I couldn’t confirm it- what say you, Reign stans? And what do we make of the elaborate hairstyling with somewhat soft fabric costuming? It feels noble in style, almost Essosi, but not quite. I’m really interested to see what the costume designer does to put their stamp on the new show- it’s a long-ago era in Westeros, and fashion evolves quickly.
The obstructed view makes it tough to say but the woman in the middle looks like Denise Gough.
Here we have Blood Moon director S.J. Clarkson and some of the crew. (Yeah I’m going with Blood Moon until they drop us some footage or a poster or something that says otherwise. “Untitled Game of Thrones Prequel” is a bullshit title. )
The sets being used have a familiar look, and some we’ve seen being worked on the last couple months such as the large blue-screen- backed cave piece.
All of which brings us to…this helpful piece of paperwork left posted for our enjoyment! I wish the writing were just a tad larger on the first paper, but the second one is clear enough. In addition to showing the Blood Moon spear and reflection logo. Along with already established Northern Ireland info, the paper confirms shooting dates planned:
– June 11th- July 10th, Northern Ireland locations
– July 15th in Italy
That works with what Italian press has been reporting, that the prequel pilot would be filming in the Grotta del Turco in Gaeta. Photos of the Grotta online are incredibly beautiful; I’m happy to see HBO and the new showrunners are continuing the Thrones tradition of choosing stunning locations around the world to bring Westeros to life.
Naomi!
Ten Bears,
…no.
Oh wow, amazing photos! Great scoop!
The hairstyles look amazing, definitely giving me a Roman vibe, and what little we can see of the costumes looks very intriguing… can’t wait for it all to be put into proper context, it’s definitely not how I would expect prehistoric Westerosi to look/dress but i’m loving what I see regardless of what and/or where this is!
I wish them a good fortune in the wars to come.
Sue the Fury,
My bad. 🤢
The white clothes the red-haired woman in first 2 photos reminds me of a stola, or female toga. Maybe they’re going with clothing similar to ancient Rome and Greece? And her hairstyle is very reminiscent as well.
My thoughts too. Definitely toga-like. Ancient Mediterranean. Not feeling the Blood Moon title though.
The Grotta looks so freaking cool.
Fienix,
I agree, the styles look very Grecian/Roman, which makes sense as it’s set thousands of years prior. Wonder if this will be Essosi or Westerosi costuming?
The rusted armour is really interesting too. There surely won’t be anyone alive wearing those..perhaps these will be found in the caves?
Loving that we have simply no clue about what any of this could be! 🙂
Hmm… all these rusty things; you can clearly see it’s not only armor that is covered in rust. And the armor itself is pressed in in some places – which leads me to conclusion that it’s not really an armor that is about to be worn. I’d guess it’s some kind of exposition element in whatever scene they are going to film; like a part of the scenery (maybe something that has been thrown out by the sea).
Honestly, it’s fantastic to once again be on the track of looking for some spicy leaks 🙂 and even twice as exciting now, that we have no idea of what the show is about. It opens the theorycrafting even wider than with Game of Thrones, where the story had already been established 🙂
Apollo,
The armour is not rusted, it’s bronze, in my humble opinion, as used by the First Men. This, and what we can se of the hairstyles and clothing, makes me think it’s going to be their equivalent of the Greek (possibly early Roman) era too.
Which fits in quite nicely with the legendary aspect of the period, the Last Hero being an Achilles/Odysseus/Theseus type figure, as does Bran the builder with foundation myths, Romulus and Remus and what have you (Just an aside, interesting, if about the origin of the Starks, they were suckled by a she-wolf…! ).
Apollo,
Seems like somewhat of an anachronism to me if the characters are dressed in what we would consider to be from the Romano/Grecian period? In our history that was some 2500 to 2000 years ago and GoT was set in what we would call the Middle Ages (~14/15th century).
If ‘The Wall’ was built some 6000 years before the GoT era and this prequel supposedly goes back long before that, it just goes to show how slow things progress in Westeros! Would have thought that long ago the characters would be wearing animal skins and living in caves 🙂
This kind of has more of a “Rome” look than “Game of Thrones”. Rome was actually a pretty damn good show. Not quite GoT’s but still very good. The scene with Pullo & Vorenus in the arena yelling “Thirteenth”… So good.
Aegon the IceDragon,
Yeah, Rome was excellent. Second season got butchered a bit because they found out it was being canceled midway through the writing process, but I still enjoyed it. HBO actually regrets canceling Rome after the response it got post cancellation, but it helped paved the way for GoT since HBO learned from the mistakes it made in doing a huge production overseas.
So is will this be about the beginning of the white walkers? Because it’s a bit anti climatic how they end in the narrative … so is everything else in the end… anti climatic , so nothing really matters..
I think it’s an interesting exercise to dream up reasons why technology and civilization have never really advanced in this world. Maybe partly to do with the extreme and long seasons. The winters kill too many people off. Maybe to do with magic. Little need to develop technology when you can dominate the world through magic instead. The greatest civilization their world has seen so far was entirely dependent on dragons, like the real world on cheap access to fossil fuels. When dragons died off, civilization took a massive step backwards.
Not that there is really an answer other than George thought it would import more gravitas to the events if great feats of engineering and house foundation stories were 8000 years old rather than 800, but still. The people in this prequel are clearly not going to be prehistoric. They built Storm’s End and Winterfell. They were arguably more industrious than the people we know from Game of Thrones.
Based on what we know about the storyline — “the end of the Age of Heroes” etc — this may actually be a “Fall of the Roman Empire”-type story. Very interesting, especially if the aim is to show the collapse of a Westerosi civilisation that was significantly more advanced than what we saw on GoT. (In fact, maybe Tyrion’s remark in the finale about building a clean water system for KL was actually a sneaky easter egg/hint about a Roman-inspired prequel). HBO also has, shall we say, some experience depicting Roman-themed stuff…
There are intriguing possibilities for Essos too. They’ll obviously mix around the historical periods used as inspiration, as happened in GoT, but it means the show could depict Essos’s equivalents of Persepolis, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt etc. Epic stuff. It would look incredible on screen.
Slightly off-topic, but there was an interesting documentary about King Arthur on British television during the weekend that had some equally interesting implications about ASOIAF/GoT: According to the documentary, “Bran the Blessed” was a significant figure in early medieval British mythology, and in old Welsh the name “Bran” meant “raven” or “crow”. GRRM really did his homework 😉
That is almost certainly Miranda Richardson with our back to us. I recognise her by the chin! Isn’t she playing one of the ancient Lady Starks?
Wow those costumes look almost ancient Greek and so different from anything we saw in GOT. I’m also slightly struck by the rustic armour and how this will play into things, I can’t stop thinking of Jason and the Argonauts now!