The GAME OF THRONES Prequel Series at HBO Starring Naomi Watts Is Dead
I gotta say, I didn’t see this coming. The Game of Thrones prequel series that was being developed for HBO is not moving forward. They passed on the project.
Jane Goldman was leading the charge on this project, and it starred Naomi Watts, Josh Whitehouse, Denise Gough, Miranda Richardson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Alex Sharp, and Toby Regbo. S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones) directed the pilot episode.
I’m actually kinda bummed out by this because the concept of the series sounded so cool! George R.R. Martin called the series “The Long Night,” which is the era that the story is set in. But, that wasn’t the official title. The series was set about 5,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones and would have featured a very different Westeros. It was explained:
“Westeros is a very different place. There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens — Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and hopefully that will be part of the fun of the series.”
It was also said that “the project chronicles the world's descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour.” The network previously teased the plot with the following logline:
"Only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros' history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it's not the story we think we know."
This was one of several Game of Thrones projects in development at HBO. The other project that is currently in development is based on the history of the Targaryens and the story would lead up to and eventually chronicle the house’s civil war, which is known as the legendary Dance of the Dragons.
The Dance of the Dragons was “a massive civil war in the Seven Kingdoms held between two rival branches of House Targaryen. The war occurred roughly 200 years before the events in Game of Thrones.”
With the series being canceled, I guess we’ll never know what we missed out on.
Source: Variety