George R.R. Martin announced on Friday that HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon has completed filming.
“Exciting news out of London — I am informed that shooting has wrapped for the first season of House of the Dragon,” the author wrote in a post on his personal blog. “Yes, all 10 episodes. I have seen rough cuts of a few of them, and I’m loving them. Of course, a lot more work needs to be done. Special effects, color timing, score, all the post production work. But the writing, the directing, the acting all look terrific. I hope you will like them as much as I do. My hat is off to Ryan [J. Condal] and Miguel [Sapochnik] and their team, and to our amazing cast.”
He went on to remind fans that HBO has yet to announce a premiere date for the hotly anticipated show, writing, “So when will you get to see it, you ask? When will the dragons dance? I wish I could tell you. Lots of work remains to be done, as I said, and COVID makes planning difficult. This spring? Unlikely. Maybe summer? Could be. Fall? Who knows? You’ll know when we do.”
Taking inspiration from Martin’s 2018 novel Fire & Blood, the prequel will chart the downfall of the famed House Targaryen centuries before the start of the original fantasy series, including the Targaryen civil war known throughout Westeros as “the Dance of the Dragons.”
House of the Dragon stars Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Milly Alcock, Olivia Cooke, Graham McTavish, Paddy Considine, Eve Best, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Sonoya Mizuno, Ryan Corr, Jefferson Hall and more.
Last May, HBO dropped a first look at the series with a trio of images featuring Smith, D’Arcy, Cooke, Ifans, and Toussaint in character. Two months later, filming was forced to shut down temporarily after an unnamed member of the cast or crew tested positive for COVID-19 on location in the UK. In October, a teaser trailer promised “Gods, kings, fire, and blood.”
