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‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Pilot Starring Naomi Watts Not Moving Forward at HBO

bitbydeath

Member
The cast and crew of the pilot were recently informed that HBO had passed on the project. The potential series was set to take place thousands of years prior to the events of the original series.

In addition to Watts, the pilot starred Josh Whitehouse, Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Georgie Henley, Alex Sharp, Toby Regbo, Miranda Richardson, Marquis Rodriquez, John Simm, Richard McCabe, John Heffernan, and Dixie Egerickx.

 
Lol

They're probably moving forward with a Targaryen prequel trying to cast the next blonde cutie and spawn dragon memes.

Considering the whole planet did this when GOT ended:

hbbir_bok2m.gif


... they really need to make something fantastic.
 
Damn this sucks. I was never a fan of the prequel idea before but after that craptastic season 8 we as fans deserve a kick ass prequel to wash the shit out of our mouths
 
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Joe T.

Member
HBO's current slate of content doesn't give me much reason to be optimistic about the powers that be making the right decisions, so I'm not really sure what to make of this news, but if it's saving us from a season 8 caliber show then it's for the best. According to TVLine.com:

According to sources, HBO execs screened the pilot over the summer and were not thrilled with the results. Instead of passing, however, they sent Goldman and Co. back into the editing room to make a slew of changes. But the revamped pilot failed to impress the execs either, leading them to pull the plug altogether.

According to multiple insiders, the pilot was “troubled” from the start, marred by budget overruns, numerous personnel issues and myriad creative differences.

Meanwhile, HBO is expected to move forward with another Game of Thrones prequel project, this one that would trace the glory days of House Targaryen. The project has earned an official pilot order at HBO. The spinoff is co-created by GoT book author George R.R. Martin and Colony creator Ryan J. Condal, and is set 300 years before the original Thrones series, chronicling “the beginning of the end for House Targaryen.” Martin’s companion book Fire & Blood serves as a template for the new series.
 
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TacosNSalsa

Member
I was a huge fan of the orginal show (first 6 seasons at least) but I cant say I'm sorry . I hate spin offs with the exception of A Different World
 

JimiNutz

Banned
I thought the prequel sounded pretty cool and was set far back enough to distance itself from the previous shows storyline.
I was also interested in seeing a show that Martin was more involved in.

I guess the stench from season 8 still lingers thick in the air.
 

Dural

Member
Lol

They're probably moving forward with a Targaryen prequel trying to cast the next blonde cutie and spawn dragon memes.

Considering the whole planet did this when GOT ended:

hbbir_bok2m.gif


... they really need to make something fantastic.

Are you from the future?
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
A prequel series with an eye on the White Walkers just doesn’t make sense given how ultimately they just didn’t matter. It would be like dedicating a show to the history of the Bolton’s - they turned up, but they’re not headliners. Probably a smart move from HBO.
 

Tesseract

Banned
i think the white walker prequel stuff could have worked if they played with time in clever ways

still think it was a mistake to shelve the series like they did, had at least 2 more seasons of material to run through

dany's death should've been just another ripple in the sand
 

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Probably worth mentioning that we also just got a straight-to-series order for House of the Dragon, another GoT prequel.
But poor Jamie Campbell Bower. The guy was in the original Game of Thrones pilot, but after like, 80% of it was reshot, his role was cut entirely (he was originally one of the Night's Watch members at the start--think he'd have been the guy that got beheaded by Ned). Now he gets a starring role in a prequel, and that's slashed as well.
 

Roufianos

Member
That sucks. I'm way more interested in the White Walkers than the Targaryans. Even more so after S8 handled them so awfully.
 

Tevious

Member
This is good news. From what I'd been hearing about the show, it was going to be a disaster. It was just going to be a rehash of Game of Thrones.

According to one youtuber that apparently had an insider leak some details to him a year ago, this production was a complete mess. Instead of using one of GRRM's suggestions for a prequel show, the heads of HBO at the time (now gone after the AT&T buyout got rid of them) wanted to do their own prequel show without using existing material that GRRM actually wrote about. So they green-lit the show bypassing all the other ideas. They wanted to capitalize the most on the popularity of the show (this is pre-season 8) and have characters named Stark and Lannister, and have white walkers. But they ran into a problem. Having the show based solely in (mid to upper) Westeros in a time that was basically Celtic Britain wouldn't be very diverse. So what did they do? They cast all the Children of the Forest as black people. But then all the black actors would have been behind heavy makeup, so then they had planned to retcon the Children of the Forest and make them all black people with the intention of eventually having them get cursed into looking like how they did in GoT.... This information came before shooting began, so it's unsure if they were really going to go through with the retcon or not.

So now with the old HBO heads out of the way, the new prequel show ideas might actually have some potential. The Dance of the Dragons prequel show, House of the Dragon, is already green-lit, which will be about the Targaryen civil war and possibly other things. And since the new heads of HBO expressed interest in having 2 shows run simultaneously at different times of the year, now we might also get Empire of Ash, the Doom of Valyria prequel, which would be kind of a fantasy Roman empire with dragons.
 
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ChaosEngine

Neo Member
I cannot wait till December cause the 4K uhd Season 8 disc gets released. Gonna jump to Episode 3 & Episode 5 for the BIG battles. Its going to look
absolutely CRAZY. Some people are gonna sh*t themselves watching E3 lol.
 
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