Speaking at the Television Critics Association, HBO programming president Casey Bloys confirmed that the only Game of Thrones prequel, out of the total five originally planned, that is currently taking shape is the one helmed by Jane Goldman and George R.R. Martin. He revealed there are currently no plans to move forward on the four previously announced ideas.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bloys revealed that the prequel in question will be set 8,000 years before the events of Game Of Thrones.
“The story’s time period, another 8,000 years before [the events in GoT], it’s far enough away so it feels like a different story, a different world because it is — the kingdoms do not exist at this point,” Bloys said. “So it felt distinct.”
He added that the GOT spinoff show will be set in a different time period, so, it will be quite different as compared to Game of Thrones.
“We’re not trying to do Game of Thrones Part II,” Bloys said. “No one is going to duplicate what [GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] did. By setting it when we did, there’s a lot going on, a lot of dynamics that are related to Game of Thrones, but it’s different enough with its time period and characters its duplicative.”
When asked if the show makers will utilize the crew and production facilities built in Belfast to shoot the Game of Thrones prequel, he replied that the probability of shooting in Belfast is very high.
“It’s very likely we’ll end up there, Belfast is very high on the list and makes a lot of sense. But there’s nothing 100 percent yet,” Bloys said.
Notably, the HBO programming president neither announced an air date for Goldman’s pilot nor did he provide an air date for the Game of Thrones final season. However, he did mention that the final six Game of Thrones episodes will be aired in the first half of 2019.
