House of the Dragon: key info
– It will stream on HBO Max and Sky Atlantic
– Release date anticipated for Spring 2022
– Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith and more are all confirmed to star
– The show is based on George R. R. Martin’s 2018 novel, Fire and Blood
– An official trailer has given us our first look at characters in action
It’s been two whole years since the Game of Thrones finale went down like a lead balloon – but the world of Westeros is finally coming back.
House of the Dragon, a 10-episode series based on George R. R. Martin’s 2018 novel, Fire and Blood, will tell the backstory of the Targaryen dynasty, taking place 200 years prior to the events of the original show.
The highly-anticipated series is confirmed to land some time in 2022 on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK (or HBO Max in both regions, by that point).
We actually know a fair bit about House of the Dragon already – HBO released official information surrounding its main cast of characters and actors ahead of leaks – and below, we’ll go into everything we know so far about the show, from its latest trailer to expected release date.
Release date: We don’t have an exact date yet, but a 2022 release has been confirmed. We’d expect to see House of the Dragon release in the second half of next year.
Cast: Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, Sonoya Mizuno and Steve Toussaint all feature in the series as part of its vast ensemble cast. Scroll down for much more on who they’re each playing, as well as the other confirmed cast members.
Story: Not much has been revealed about the show’s plot yet, but being set around 200 years before Game of Thrones, we’d expect Targaryen infighting to form a big part of its story. And yes: there will be dragons.
House of the Dragon release date
There isn’t a confirmed release date for House of the Dragon just yet, though HBO has said it’s coming in 2022. Given the amount of effects work required on a show that’ll feature numerous fire-breathing dragons, we’d be surprised to see it arrive before next spring. For our Australian readers, that’s between March and June.
That’s the time frame George R. R. Martin’s working to, anyway – in an interview with Chicago’s WTTW TV station (reported by the Sun), the Westeros creator said: “It’ll probably be on next spring, I guess.”
We did get our first trailer in October, which you can find further down this article, though footage was limited and it’s likely that a whole lot more post-production work is needed before we see the final product.
Fire will reign ????The @HBO original series #HouseoftheDragon is officially in production. Coming soon to @HBOMax in 2022. pic.twitter.com/tPX8n2IvGWApril 26, 2021
As for how the ongoing global pandemic has affected production, proceedings on House of the Dragon were briefly halted in July 2021 after a crew member tested positive for Covid-19. According to Entertainment Weekly, however, shooting resumed two days later, and the hold-up is not expected to delay the release date.
As well as launching on HBO and HBO Max in the US, the series has been confirmed for release on Sky and Now TV in the UK, following a new deal Sky TV signed with HBO in October 2019 that will keep HBO shows on the platforms “for many years to come.”
By the time 2022 rolls around, HBO Max will have also found its way to European regions, too, so House of the Dragon will be available to watch, one way or another, in more places than ever.
House of the Dragon cast
The key House of the Dragon cast looks like this:
- Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen
- Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower
- Emily Carey as Alicent Hightower (younger)
- Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen
- Milly Alcock as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (younger)
- Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen
- Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon – or The Sea Snake, as he’s known
- Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys Velaryon
- Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower
- Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria
- Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole
- Wil Johnson as Ser Vaemond Velaryon
- John Macmillan as Ser Laenor Velaryon
- Theo Nate as Ser Laenor Velaryon (younger)
- Savannah Steyn as Lady Laena Velayron
- Graham McTavish – character unknown
Now that House of the Dragon has begun filming, HBO has been pretty open about who’s in the cast, and who’s playing which characters. This will no doubt head off leaks about the show – though there’s one additional cast member who’s confirmed his involvement in the series before an official announcement, which we’ll detail below.
We’re going to be careful on spoilers, here, because if you go digging into the events of Fire and Blood, you might end up ruining part of the show’s story. Below, we’re sticking to what HBO has revealed so far, so you only know how the characters are starting off in House of the Dragon.
First up, Paddy Considine is playing King Viserys Targaryen, who’s selected by the lords of Westeros as the successor to the previous king – Jaehaerys Targaryen. HBO describes him as a ‘warm, kind and decent man’, whose main goal is to continue his grandfather’s way of doing things. But since when does being a ‘decent man’ ever get you anywhere in Westeros, except dead? Viserys is also the namesake of Daenerys’ older brother.
Let’s go to the highest-profile piece of casting in the show. Playing Viserys’ younger brother, Prince Daemon Targaryen, is Matt Smith of The Crown and Doctor Who fame. Described as an unmatched warrior, he’s the heir to the throne of Westeros – he’s also capable of riding dragons, and he sounds like trouble waiting to happen. Not everyone in Westeros seems to be a fan of Daemon, as we’ll touch on below.
Let’s flip to another Targaryen. Truth Seekers’ Emma D’Arcy plays Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Viserys’ first-born child – it sounds like her only big drawback in this show is being a woman, when the world around her favors men in positions of power. But hey, she’s also capable of riding dragons, and she’s of pure Valyrian blood. Milly Alcock will play a younger version of Princess Rhaenyra.
Ready Player One’s Olivia Cooke plays Alicent Hightower. She’s politically savvy, and is closely aligned with the king and his allies – she’s also the daughter of Rhys Ifans‘ Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King. Hightower doesn’t trust Daemon, and regards his status as heir to the throne as a fraught state of affairs. The younger version of Alicent will be played by Emily Carey.
Steve Toussaint plays Lord Corlys Velaryon, also known as the Sea Snake. He’s got big nautical energy, possessing the largest navy in Westeros and being a famous adventurer on the high seas himself. The Velaryon bloodline is as old as House Targaryen, HBO says. Interestingly, in March 2021, it was reported by Deadline that HBO was considering a spin-off focusing specifically on this character.
Eve Best plays Corlys’ wife, Princess Rhaenys Velaryon. She was in contention to rule Westeros, except the Great Council bypassed her status as heir to elect her cousin, Viserys, as king. The reason? He’s a man, and she is not. That’s bound to be the source of some major tension on the show.
Sticking with relatives to Corlys, Wil Johnson plays his younger brother, Ser Vaemond Velaryon, who is also a commander in the Velaryon navy. Savannah Steyn stars as Lady Laena Velayron, daughter of Corlys and Rhaenys, while both John Macmillan and Theo Nate play their son, Ser Laenor Velaryon (older and younger, respectively).
Other characters include Devs’ Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria, who HBO says has been “sold more times than she can recall”. She’s escaped a life of degradation, however, and now finds herself as the closest ally of Prince Daemon Targaryen, making her a fairly powerful figure in Westeros.
Last of the officially announced cast is Dornish lad Ser Criston Cole, played by Fabien Frankel. He’s a commoner, but since HBO notes he kicks ass with a sword, you can expect him to play a key role in the larger story of House of the Dragon.
Finally, The Hobbit actor Graham McTavish confirmed to Stylist that he’s part of the cast for the show, after he was reportedly spotted on set. Who he’s playing, though, remains a mystery, since he hasn’t been officially added to the cast by HBO at present. The actor’s clearly in an epic fantasy place right now, seeing as he’s also starring in The Witcher season 2.
We’ll update this cast list as we learn more about who’s participating in this enormous show.
House of the Dragon story
The new Game of Thrones prequel series focuses on House Targaryen, so expect ambition, incest and, of course, winged, fire-breathing reptiles. George R. R. Martin confirmed the latter on his blog, admitting, “I can say there will be dragons. Everyone else has said that, so why not me?”
As mentioned, the new show is based on Martin’s 2018 book Fire and Blood, which managed to annoy a section of the fanbase by not being The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga – it’s been 10 years since the previous instalment, A Dance With Dragons, landed in bookstores.
Instead, the book is a history of the dragon-riding Targaryen family – the author himself has described it as the “GRRMarillion”, a nod to the dense J. R. R. Tolkien non-novel that recounts the pre-Lord of the Rings history of Middle-earth.
In terms of chronology, House of the Dragon will be set 200 years before Game of Thrones. The series promises to tell the story of House Targaryen – but nothing else has been shared about the plot, other than what we’ve learned in the character descriptions above.
We’ve had our first trailer, which you’ll find below, wherein an ominous Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) utters the cryptic lines, “Gods. Kings. Fire. Blood. Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did” – though that doesn’t give too much away as regards the show’s plot.
Still, we can speculate. There’s likely to be plenty of familial in-fighting – the Targaryens were dysfunctional long before Viserys and Daenerys came along – alongside the origin stories of other major Westerosi houses like the Baratheons, Tyrells and Lannisters.
In other words, House of the Dragon looks set to have the same mix of epic battles, political intrigue and betrayals as Game of Thrones, with one major difference – this being a prequel, we know exactly where it’s heading.
House of the Dragon creators: who’s making it?
A Twitter announcement in October 2019 revealed that George R. R. Martin created the new Game of Thrones prequel series with Ryan Condal. Condal is best known for showrunning USA Network alien invasion drama Colony, and scripting the Dwayne Johnson-starring game adaptation Rampage.
Condal will write the show and share showrunning duties with Miguel Sapochnik. Sapochnik directed some of Game of Thrones’ most epic episodes – including season 6’s Battle of the Bastards and season 8’s The Long Night – and will helm multiple episodes of House of the Dragon, including the pilot.
Other confirmed producers include Vince Gerardis, Sara Lee Hess and Ron Schmidt. Directors Clare Kilner, Geeta V Patel and Greg Yaitanes are also working on the series.
What’s more, Variety reports that House of the Dragon will be the first show to make use of the V stage, a new virtual production stage at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, UK – which we presume could be similar to the Mandalorian’s MicroLED display stages.
And, in perhaps the best appointment of all, composer Ramin Djawadi will be returning from Game of Thrones to score House of the Dragon.
House of the Dragon trailer
We got our first official look at House of the Dragon via the show’s debut teaser trailer, which dropped in October. You can watch it below.
We’re anticipating a full-length trailer nearer the time of release, so perhaps in either January or February of next year.
Other Game of Thrones spin-offs
What happened to the Game of Thrones prequel series, Blood Moon?
The other prequel series looked set to be massive. One of five potential spin-off shows ordered into development by HBO, this one, set 8,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones, looked the most likely to get a green light. HBO even shot a pilot episode over the summer of 2019.
Scripted by Jane Goldman – who boasts Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and Kingsman on her impressive resumé – the untitled series would reportedly have told the story of the First Men, the Children of the Forest, and the creation of the White Walkers.
Naomi Watts headed up an impressive cast that also included John Simm (Life on Mars, Doctor Who), Miranda Richardson (Blackadder II, Good Omens), Jamie Campbell Bower (The Twilight Saga: New Moon, King Arthur) and Naomi Ackie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The End of the F***ing World).
All looked promising until October 2019, when it turned out HBO had decided not to pick up the show. So, what gave the broadcaster the fear?
“In development, in pilots, sometimes things come together, sometimes they don’t,” HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys told Deadline. “One of the things I think Jane [Goldman] took on beautifully, which was a challenge, there was a lot more world creation because she set hers 8,000 years before the [parent] show, so it required a lot more. One of the things about House of Dragons [sic], there is a text, there is a book, so that made it a little bit more of a road map for a series order.
“I think Jane did a beautiful job, it was a big challenge but there was nothing that I would point to and say, ‘Oh, that one element did not work.’ Just overall it did not quite gel.”
As for whether House of the Dragon will eventually be joined on HBO by more shows set in Westeros, Bloys simply said: “For me for right now, I think getting House of the Dragon on the air will be the number one priority. There are no other blinking green lights or anything like that. Sometime down the road who knows, but there are no immediate plans.”
In February 2021, Bloys again weighed in on the franchise’s future beyond House of the Dragon. “I’ve never wanted to do this with a mandate that you must have three series by this time or you must exploit adult animation or you must do that,” he told Deadline.
“It’s really coming from: would that be interesting? Is that good? Do we have a writer we believe in? That’s kind of the approach we are taking. I think you have to because if you don’t do that, it would lead to putting shows on for the sake of it.”
This remained the situation in June 2021. “Any script that is in development or pitched becomes news, and it inevitably gets reported and people assume they are in production,” Bhoys told Deadline. “Only House of the Dragon is in production, the rest are in development, and we will make a decision.”
While HBO is staying tight-lipped on the matter, other Westeros-set shows reportedly in development include 9 Voyages (focused on House of the Dragon character Lord Corlys Velaryon) and The Tales of Dunk and Egg (about the early days of King Aegon Targaryen).
The Hollywood Reporter also reports that several animated spin-offs are in development, though it also claims Flea Bottom (a potential live-action series set in the slums of Kings Landing) has been abandoned. For now, however, House of the Dragon is the only Game of Thrones spin-off you need to worry about.
Should you care about House of the Dragon?
By the time House of the Dragon arrives, we think curiosity for a Game of Thrones prequel series will be higher than it would’ve been two years ago, when the show ended divisively.
The big names in the cast and shift in time frame do make the series sound intriguing – the pressure will just be on to make the stakes feel as grand as they were in the main series, which is tough when we ultimately know what happens to House Targaryen.
Still, we have missed seeing CG dragons destroy stuff over the past couple of years. If nothing else, hopefully this series will have plenty of that.
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