Can ‘House of the Dragon’ Be HBO’s Next ‘Game of Thrones’?

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LOS ANGELES — George R.R. Martin has seen the feedback, and he’s learn the emails.

Ever since “Recreation of Thrones,” the groundbreaking HBO fantasy collection, went off the air in Could 2019, he has been effectively conscious of the backlash in opposition to the present’s remaining season. Martin, the person who painstakingly created the “Thrones” universe during the last three a long time by means of his many books, and who was totally on the sidelines through the remaining seasons of the TV collection, does marvel if there will likely be some viewers who skip “Home of the Dragon,” the primary “Thrones” spinoff. The collection will make its much-anticipated debut on HBO and HBO Max on Aug. 21.

“Folks say, ‘I’m performed with “Recreation of Thrones,” they burned me, I’m not even going to look at this new present — I’m not going to look at any of the brand new exhibits,’” Martin mentioned in a current interview.

The query, he mentioned, is how a lot of the “Thrones” viewers do the complainers signify?

“I imply, are we speaking about 1,000,000 folks?” he requested. “Or are we speaking about 1,000? Individuals who don’t have anything to do besides tweet all day again and again? I don’t know.”

Martin and HBO are about to search out out.

Three years after the preferred present in HBO’s historical past bowed out, the hunt for a successor is lastly over. It took a number of effort to get right here. Quite a few “Thrones” prequels had been put into growth, and a pilot episode for one more spinoff was filmed earlier than it was canceled. Tens of tens of millions of {dollars} have been poured into the winner of the bake-off, “Home of the Dragon.”

The stakes are excessive. Success for “Home of the Dragon” would reassure HBO executives that viewers are craving extra “Thrones” tales and will result in many extra exhibits set in Westeros and past. Along with this collection, HBO has not less than 5 different “Thrones” tasks in energetic growth.

“The trick right here is, you don’t need to simply remake the unique present,” mentioned Casey Bloys, the HBO chief content material officer. “You need to make a present that feels associated and honors the unique, but additionally seems like its personal.

“It’s a crucial franchise to us.”

But when the primary one out of the gate fails to search out an viewers, it may increase questions on whether or not the Thrones Cinematic Universe is absolutely the mental property gold mine that HBO executives hope it’s.

HBO’s new company overlords, executives from Discovery, have a crushing $53 billion debt load, they usually have been searching for financial savings — in different phrases, high-cost “Thrones” spinoffs had higher repay. “Home of the Dragon” can even have loads of competitors within the would-be blockbuster house. Two weeks into the prequel’s run, Amazon will debut its enormously costly and bold “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy.” Will two splashy, big-budget fantasy collection be an excessive amount of for some viewers?

It can even have to beat the stench of a remaining few episodes that left followers and critics scratching their heads at hairpin narrative turns because the collection galloped effectively previous the still-unfinished works of Martin’s collection of books, “A Tune of Ice and Hearth.”

However these are the challenges.

Right here’s what “Home of Dragon” has going for it: “Thrones,” which ran between 2011 and 2019, was the most-watched present in HBO’s historical past. That controversial finale drew almost 20 million viewers the evening it premiered — an astonishing determine within the fragmented streaming period. “Thrones” was additionally a delight to critics and received extra Emmys than any collection in TV historical past, together with profitable finest drama 4 occasions.

The collection modified tv in so some ways — lavish budgets, technical wizardry, a cinematic scope that was as soon as uncommon for the small display screen — that it may be just a little too simple to miss the extremely sturdy basis it constructed for spinoffs.

“I do consider that may be a little bit extra of a web based narrative than it’s in actual life,” Bloys mentioned, of the ultimate season backlash. “I imply, we have now the information of who’s watching ‘Recreation of Thrones,’ and it’s persistently within the High 10 belongings that individuals watch on HBO Max around the globe. As we’re coming nearer to the premiere of this present, we’ve seen folks going again, and we’ve seen an uptick within the viewership on HBO Max for the flagship collection.”

“Home of the Dragon” takes place nearly 200 years earlier than the occasions of “Recreation of Thrones.” The collection follows the Targaryen household — that may be the silver-haired, dragon-flying crew, the one which Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) made well-known within the authentic collection — simply as it’s about to rupture, with dire penalties for the realm.

And within the premiere episode, there are parts that may look acquainted to “Thrones” viewers, together with loads of gore, a number of dragons and an Iron Throne. Additionally: nudity and an orgy.

It took greater than 5 years to get so far. In Could 2017, with the penultimate season of “Recreation of Thrones” about to debut, the community introduced that it had 4 potential spinoffs within the works. A 12 months later, a candidate was chosen: a prequel that may happen some 1,000 years earlier than the occasions of the unique collection.

It might not final. By 2019, after the pilot was shot, the community pulled the plug.

“As soon as I noticed that first pilot, I knew that was not the collection to launch,” Bob Greenblatt, the previous chairman of WarnerMedia Leisure, the place he oversaw HBO, wrote in an e-mail. Greenblatt mentioned the pilot didn’t really feel “expansive or epic sufficient.”

At the moment, the clock was additionally ticking. HBO had been very deliberate in creating spinoffs, and WarnerMedia, then owned by AT&T, was months away from debuting its new streaming service, HBO Max. Greenblatt was “determined to get one thing — something — from the ‘Recreation of Thrones’ I.P. into our pipelines,” he wrote.

“I understood Casey and the crew’s reluctance to throw a brand new ‘Recreation of Thrones’ present into manufacturing (particularly because the backlash from the ultimate season of the unique collection),” he added. “Nonetheless, whereas all of us knew no sequel or prequel would in all probability ever rise to the extent of the unique, there was settlement we needed to go ahead with one thing.”

Fortunately, the community had one other venture in growth, one which Martin had been pushing for a while: his rise-and-fall story of the Targaryens, which he had written about extensively in his books. “Home of the Dragon” is customized from Martin’s “Hearth & Blood,” the primary in a deliberate two-volume chronicle of the household’s exploits and clashes.

“He was very captivated with this specific story,” mentioned Miguel Sapochnik, a veteran of the unique collection and a showrunner of “Home of the Dragon.”

The community cycled by means of two writers earlier than Martin requested for assist from an outdated pal: The author Ryan Condal, a creator of the USA science fiction present, “Colony.”

Condal caught up recurrently with Martin over dinner and drinks and geeked out over the works of different fantasists like Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Ursula Okay. Le Guin. “Once we would get collectively we might, you already know, speak like two fanboys do,” Martin mentioned. Martin requested Condal to begin writing a Targaryen prequel.

HBO executives favored what they noticed in Condal, who signed on as a creator, with Martin, and as a showrunner. After Sapochnik, who directed a few of the authentic’s largest episodes, additionally agreed to be a showrunner, HBO ordered “Home of the Dragon” straight to collection.

“What appealed to me about it was it’s a household drama,” Bloys mentioned. “Anyone who has stepparents or siblings or half siblings, or had warring factions of a household — I feel each single household in America has handled some model of this.”

As Condal started working on “Home of the Dragon,” he leaned on Martin’s experience quite a bit — the other of what had occurred with Martin within the later seasons of “Recreation of Thrones.” Within the early seasons, Martin wrote and skim scripts, consulted on casting selections and visited units. Over time, nonetheless, as he stepped again to concentrate on his long-delayed subsequent “Thrones” novel, “The Winds of Winter,” Martin grew estranged from the present, which was created by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.

“By Season 5 and 6, and positively 7 and eight, I used to be just about out of the loop,” Martin mentioned.

When requested why, he mentioned, “I don’t know — you need to ask Dan and David.” (A consultant for Weiss and Benioff declined to remark.)

Martin additionally mentioned that “The Winds of Winter” — which he conceded is “very, very late” however vowed to complete — diverges from the place “Recreation of Thrones,” the collection, went.

“My ending will likely be very completely different,” he mentioned.

Martin mentioned he desires from “Thrones” what Marvel has performed — created a world that Disney continues to mine and that followers reliably present as much as watch. Final 12 months, he signed an total cope with HBO, and he has been actively concerned with the opposite spinoffs in growth.

“George, for us, on this course of has been a extremely helpful useful resource,” Bloys mentioned. “He’s actually the creator of this world. He’s its historian, its creator, its keeper. And so I can’t think about doing a present that he didn’t consider in or didn’t endorse.”

As for viewership totals, Bloys mentioned he didn’t count on “Home of the Dragon” to match the heights of “Recreation of Thrones.” However he was nonetheless hopeful that it is going to be a success and lay the groundwork for future spinoffs.

“There’s no world wherein we count on this to select up the place the unique left off,” Bloys mentioned. “I feel the present will do very well. Nevertheless it should do the work by itself to convey folks in and to maintain the viewership.”

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