What are the upcoming Game of Thones TV shows?
WARNING: FOLLOWING ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8
After the finale of Game of thrones on May 2019, people have been wondering what is next for the popular series. After launching in 2011 to huge success, the show quickly became a cultural sensation. This was the kind of tv show where millions of people would tune in every week to find out what would happen next in the world of Westeros. The first season had 9.8 million viewers every week with the finale of the show having 19 million watching as it aired live. The finale was also the most pirated show of all time before being overtaken by the Mandalorian so these viewers wouldn’t be counted on the viewers of the show. The show was also extremely popular on social media, with it trending every week it aired. To add to its success, the show also has the most emmy nominations of all time for a drama series. It also had 12 wins overall, 4 of which were best drama. Peter Dinklage also won best supporting actor 4 time for his role as Tyrian Lannister.
However, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss through it all away with what some viewers might call ‘the worst ending of a show of all time’. The creators and show runners were eager to get onto the next step in their careers. This was the first major hit the duo had worked on and because of its success, had been offered very lucrative deals from Star Wars and Netflix. Star Wars had offered them a whole trilogy waiting for them.
David Benioff had previously worked on X-men origins: Wolverine and Troy which were both successful at the Box Office but which were criticized for their bad writing and for being unfaithful to the source material. And Game of Thrones was the first project D. B. Weiss had worked on. This all seemed okay when they has the source material to work off, but when George RR Martin hadn’t finished the series it left Benioff and Weiss to make up the ending themselves. This left the last season, to do a 180 on some beloved characters. An example of this was Daenerys, who was a loved character who had been sympathetic to most characters throughout the series burning down Kings Landing and killing most of the civilians. Another example is Jamie Lannister, who is played by Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and his story arc. He started off an extremely unlikable character, who had sex with his sister and then tried to murder a child by pushing him out of window. But, the character had been redeemed through out the course of the series (notably by meeting Bryene of Tarth played by Gwendoline Christie who helped redeem the character). This was all scrapped however in the last series when Jamie went back to his sister instead of staying with Bryene. Most fans didn’t like this and the response to it was so bad, it made the writing duo skip comic com. Shortly after, they dropped out of Star Wars. Over 1.5 million fans signed a petion to remake the last season of the show with better writers. However, they are still involved with Game of Thrones but the spinoffs they are involved in haven’t been greenlit by Warner Brothers yet. This leaves the greenlit spinoffs in the hands of different talent.
The first spinoff is House of the Dragon, which currently has a release window of 2022. The series has casted some characters with Paddy Considine staring as King Viserys Targaryen and Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith and Emma D’Arcy in the leads. The showrunner is also Ryan Condal, who has worked on films like Rampage, Hercules and some episodes of Colony. The series will tell the history of the house of Targaryen set 300 years before the events of the main series. This will mean lots of dragons!!! The show will follow his feath and how it will create a civil war in the family. Emma D’Arcy will play Rhaenyra, while Matt Smith takes on the role of Daemon Targaryen, her uncle-husband who supports her claim. Olivia Cooke, meanwhile, will portray Alicent Hightower, daughter of Viserys’ Hand, Otto.
Another project in the works is the tales of Dunk and Egg, which follows the adventures of Dunk (the future lord commander of the kings guard) and Egg (the future king Aegon Targaryen). The show will take place around 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones. I think this show will remind audiences of the adventures of Arya and the Hound and other medieval stories about knights and their squires. This show will probably be less epic and a little lighter than the main series (but no less interesting).
And finally, it was just announced that Warner Brothers were accepting pitches from writers for an animated for HBO Max. This will be an adult animation but the story is not yet complete because they have only just started accepting pitches so the project will be a little way off. Animation for adults has been very popular recently with Netflix having some very good show recently, with Castlevania and the Blood of Zeus being well received the upcoming Cyberpunk show being based on the game that released late last year. They have also just announced a Kong: Skull Island and Tomb Raider animated shows from Legendary. HNO Max also has some very popular shows like Harley Quinn which has an upcoming 3rd season. Disney plus even has the upcoming What If series from marvel.
Currently there is no executive in charge of Game of Thrones but if these shows prove popular, you can expect them to create this role and hire an executive to head it. I think a creative like Kevin Feige will help keep the franchise in control and keep order to it.
by Thomas Allis