House of the Dragons - Game of Thrones prequel officially coming

HBO has officially greenlit Game of Thrones Targaryen prequel titled House of the Dragons. After canceling Jane Goldman and Naomi Watts' Game of Thrones prequel, HBO has ordered ten episodes of House of the Dragons. Based on HBO's social media feeds, House of the Dragons will be co-created by George RR Martin and Ryan Condal. Miguel Sapochnik will server as the partner with Condal as the showrunner and will even direct the pilot episode and some additional episodes.

The mammoth announcement comes just hours after the news broke that HBO has scrapped the very first prequel of Game of Thrones, The Long Night. "The Game of Thrones universe is so rich with stories," says Casey Bloys, president, HBO programming via Entertainment Weekly. "We look forward to exploring the origins of House Targaryen and the earlier days of Westeros along with Miguel, Ryan, and George."

House of the Dragons is set hundreds of years before the events of Game of Thrones and will follow the life of Targaryens and how they actually were overthrown by House Baratheon and House Lannister. From the Game of Thrones world, we already knew that House Targaryen had dragons which let them won the Seven Kingdoms but after the reign of Mad King started, House Targaryen got crumbled and was later destroyed (almost) by Robbert Baratheon with the help of Jaime Lannister and Eddard 'Ned' Stark.

There can be multiple reasons for HBO to go ahead with House of the Dragons. The forthcoming TV series is based on Martin's 2019 book Fire & Blood — the history of House Targaryen that spans 150 years. It means that they already have some good material to create a series around it. Unlike the final season of Game of Thrones were they had to come up with all the ideas without the help of George RR Martin's books.

House of the Dragon will take place during a time in Westeros that already has plenty of dramatic history penned by George RR Martin and his work will serve as a backbone for the story. In addition to this, the creators will have several reference points to check for while working on the pilot episode.