As avid Game Of Thrones fans bid adieu to the controversial series finale just over a week ago, a petition to remake the final season reached over 1 million signatures. There’s no word on a remake just yet, but there is word on a mysterious new Game Of Thrones prequel. ‘Mysterious,’ however, hardly summarises the facts – there’s no official title for the project, no official release date, and no official cast…
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So what do we know about this enigmatic new show? According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys shared how they’ll be shooting the pilot next month. And filming will take place in Belfast. For a while the project was titled ‘The Long Night,’ as stated by Game Of Thrones author and creator George R.R. Martin, but has since reportedly been referred to as ‘Bloodmoon’ by those already working on the set. Fun fact: “The Long Night” was also the name given to episode three in season eight.
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As said by the author, the prequel will chronicle a world some 10 000 years before the events of Game Of Thrones. This means no dragons, no Kings Landing, no Iron Throne, and definitely no Westeros as audiences have come to know it. Martin refers to it as as “The Age of Heroes” when men, women and the children of the forest lived in harmony. The characters, setting, and overall feel of the series will be entirely its own. Bloys also confirms that there’s no spin-off series or sequel planned for Game Of Thrones either, stating how the prequel will be something that feels distinct. “[We’re not going to] try and redo the same show. That’s probably one of the reasons why, right now, a sequel or picking up any of the other characters doesn’t make sense for us,” Bloys told Hollywood Reporter.
Although the full cast hasn’t been announced, a few big names have already signed up to the prequel including Oscar-nominee Naomi Watts, Miranda Richardson, and Jamie Campbell Bower. Martin is co-creator of the series with writer Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass). Reports state the two have written the story together, but it’s not the only text Martin has a hand in. In a recent blog post, the author revealed how he has “five shows in development at HBO (some having nothing whatsoever to do with the world of Westeros), two at Hulu, and one on the History Channel.”
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So when can viewers expect a first glimpse of the world that predates Game Of Thrones? “We’re shooting the pilot in June, you can do the math and figure out when it would be on air,” said Bloys, “I don’t want to speculate any dates.” The general opinion surfing the web suggests the release date will be no sooner than May 2020. This gives fans more than enough time to digest the final season before The Age of Heroes is introduced to an audience for the very first time.
By Features Writer Marike Watson
