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“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.”

HBO has officially ordered a ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel series, set thousands of years before the events of ‘Game of Thrones’ and the book series it was based on ‘A Game of Ice & Fire’.  This program was developed by Jane Goldman and the man who wrote the novels George R.R. Martin.  Goldman will serves as showrunner for the new series,which will chronicle the fall of the “Age of Heroes to its darkest hour.”

‘Game of Thrones’ producer Vince Gerardis will serve as an executive producer, along with Daniel Zelman (‘Bloodline’, ‘Damages’).

HBO ordered several potential pilots to be set in Westeros, but this was the first they gave the green light to.  They may still order more, but that remains to be seen. HBO president Casey Bloys has stated that any prequel (or prequels) they order will not debut until at least a year and a half from the final season of ‘GoT’.  The other writers working on prequels include Max Borenstein (‘Kong: Skull Island’), Brian Helgeland (‘Legend’), Carly Wray (‘Westworld’), and Thrones veteran Bryan Cogman.  The current ‘GoT’ creators, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, are not currently involved with the spin-offs, as they are occupied with crafting the final season of ‘GoT’.

While there are multiple pilots in the works, don’t expect them all to become series.  As Bloys said last year:

“I think that is probably unlikely.  This show is very special. I’m not looking to have as many as possible. My sense right now is we would be very lucky if one of the four rises to the level that we have set. Now, theoretically, what if they’re all great? That’s a high-class problem that I’ll solve when it comes to that. But knowing what we know about the development process, that’s why we wanted to increase our odds. But I do not see a scenario where we have more than one. But again, high-class problem.”

So this may be the only successor to ‘Game of Thrones’.  And being set thousands of years in the past, there won’t be much hassle trying to get things to line up with the present series.

Does this sound promising to you?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter