‘House Of The Dragon’: George R.R. Martin Says Prequel Series Wrapped Filming, Praises “Terrific” Writing, Directing & Acting

Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin is excited about HBO’s upcoming prequel series House Of The Dragon, as revealed with a blog post on Thursday.

“I am informed that shooting has wrapped for the first season of House of The Dragon. Yes all ten episodes,” he wrote. “I have seen rough cuts of a few of them, and I’m loving them.”

Based on Martin’s Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen. The series’ five lead characters: King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), known as the Sea Snake, who becomes Hand to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen during the Dance of the Dragons.

With preliminary shooting complete, House of The Dragon still needs “a lot more” technical work like special effects, color timing, and score, Martin said. “But the writing, the directing, the acting all look terrific” he continued.

“I hope you will them as much as I do,” he wrote to fans. “My hate is off to Ryan (Condal) and Miguel (Sapochnik) and their team, and to our amazing cast.”

As for an exact 2022 premiere date, Martin wrote: “Who knows? You’ll know when we do.”

Martin’s comments come shortly after HBO and HBO Max Chief Officer Casey Bloys spoke to Deadline about the hesitation of revealing a launch date amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“One of the reasons why we’re trying to be cautious about it is when you’re shooting a show that big during a pandemic, especially with the last round [with] a lot of crew and cast members… you didn’t know who was going to drop out or if we’re going to have to shut down so we just didn’t want to declare a date and then find ourselves shut down,” he said. “Now that we are out of production, I think that we will talk to their guys and figure out what we want to do in terms of announcing a date. But I was just trying to make sure that we didn’t come out with a date that we couldn’t meet for something that was out of our control.”

House of the Dragon was co-created by Martin and Condal. The pilot script that landed the series order was written by Condal. He serves as co-showrunner alongside GoT veteran Sapochnik, who will direct the pilot and additional episodes. Martin, Condal and Sapochnik executive produce alongside writer Sara Lee Hess, Vince Gerardis and Ron Schmidt. Greg Yaitanes co-executive produces. Yaitanes, Clare Kilner and Geeta V. Patel round out the 10-episode series’ directing team.