There's bad news to deliver if you were part of the team making one of the new Game Of Thrones prequels for HBO, and especially if your name is Jane Goldman. Her much-anticipated pilot, set many years before the stories and characters of the series that concluded this year, is not moving forward beyond a pilot at US channel HBO.
While the cable outlet has not officially announced the decision, Deadline reports that Goldman has been in touch with the cast – including Naomi Watts, Naomi Ackie, Jamie Campbell Bower and Miranda Richardson – and crew (director SJ Clarkson handled the pilot) to give them the word.
The site has heard that the pilot didn't test well despite post-shoot tinkering and brings word of unspecified issues during the Belfast-focused shoot. Which is almost a tradition for televised GOT, since the original pilot had terrible reactions and was heavily re-shot. Alas, it appears that whatever transpired with Goldman's show (which she created with GOT novelist/overlord George RR Martin), was too serious to overcome.
Yet as with so many things to do with Westeros, where there is death, there is also sometimes life, and that has been handed to the other prequel, known asHouse Of The Dragon, which was being developed by Ryan Condal (alongside Martin) from an concept originally handed to Bryan Cogman will skip any pesky pilot stage and go straight to series with an initial 10-episode order.
This show, which chronicles the much earlier days of House Targaryen (Dany's lot) has veteran Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik stepping aboard as co-showrunner. It'll follow the civil (and uncivil conflicts) between family members and the various rulers who emerged. Plus, given the name and that group, a lot of dragon action.