HBO is still taking its time with House Of The Dragon. That’s a good thing.
Another year until the next season of House Of The Dragon? Don’t rush it, HBO
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Despite the actions of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO proper still knows that quality takes time. This attitude helped the network become the standard-bearer for television, so much so that it once actively refused to be considered TV. While there has lately been reason to doubt this—HBO’s streaming service is kind of a mess, with a recent focus on ruthless cost saving resulting in the unceremonious dumping of well-loved material—there is also reason to believe that sometimes quality can still win. Case in point: the deliberateness with which HBO treats its Game Of Thrones spin-offs.
In a recent interview with Variety, HBO and HBO Max content CEO Casey Bloys said it would still be another year or two until the return of the network’s crown jewel House Of The Dragon. Fans should be relieved to hear it.
“My philosophy is a good script is number one priority,” Bloys said. “I am not doing it based on wanting to have one a year, two a year. I want to do it based on the scripts that we’re excited about.”
This has long been the case when it comes to Game Of Thrones. It’s easy to forget that the sprawling adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s work launched right between Disney’s 2009 purchase of Marvel and its 2012 purchase of Star Wars. The acquisitions created a two-forked assault on the multiplex where anything and everything could and should be an endless franchise, any character can support a movie, and the more easter eggs, the better. Yet, while Game Of Thrones, with its richly detailed history, complex characters, and passionate fandom, would’ve been an easy spin-off generator, HBO has played its hand carefully. The company reportedly spent $30 million on a pilot starring Oscar-nominee Naomi Watts and canned the thing. Unlike Batgirl, which was halfway through filming, pilots are a proof of concept that more often than not reveal themselves to be cost savers in the long run.
“Remember to get House Of The Dragon following up from Game Of Thrones, we developed a lot of shows, shot a pilot, developed a bunch of scripts and we got House Of The Dragon,” Bloys said. “To do that again is going to take the same amount of effort. You have to develop a lot of things, try things. You never know what’s going to work. So we’re currently doing that. I’m not opposed to any number of shows. There’s probably a natural limit to how many fans want, but I’m open to any as long as we feel really good about the scripts and the prospects for a series.”
Unlike Bloys’ boss at Warner Bros. Discovery, who wants to “focus on franchises” at a time when Marvel fatigue is starting to hit the mainstream, HBO realizes that too much Game Of Thrones is bad for the Game Of Thrones business. The market already felt a little over-saturated when Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power and HOTD premiered within weeks of each other. Beyond that, more HOTD too quickly would create a logjam for visual effects houses; just look at how things are going at Marvel, where artists say they were forced to put all their resources into Wakanda Forever while Quantumania’s VFX staff was forced to use “shortcuts.”
“I think the movie is getting the reviews it’s been getting because Marvel is doubling down as much as possible on constricting quality,” one VFX technician told Vulture. “They’re squeezing blood out of stones. And we’re out of blood.”
A show like House Of The Dragon requires teams to produce essentially 10 Marvel movies per season. So it would make sense to make sure that the actual script is good before starting to put pixel to screen—as opposed to Marvel, which pre-visualizes action sequences before the script is even written. But HBO’s not only looking at this strategy for massive effects tentpoles like HOTD. Bloys says that the network’s other crown jewel, Succession, won’t be a franchise starter, with good reason: It’s not Game Of Thrones.
“When we started talking about doing a Thrones prequel that was something that HBO had historically never done,” Bloys said. “I had some people internally saying, ‘This is crazy. What are you doing?’ That said, I think that there’s something about the universe that George created that lent itself to [spin-offs]. There’s a huge history, a lot of different families, a lot of different wars and battles. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s something in Succession where you would go, ‘Let’s follow just this kid’ or whatever. It doesn’t seem like a natural thing to me. But if [creator Jesse Armstrong] said I want to do this, then I would follow Jesse’s lead.”
Treating these massive seasons of television as something other than a content mill appears to be the right call. House Of The Dragon premiered after years of development to mostly positive reviews and a happy fanbase—well, happier than they were after the last season of Game Of Thrones. To that same token, taking two years between Successions indicates a similar kind of care. Call it the Larry David method; take as much time as you need, just make sure it’s good when it gets here.
33 Comments
I stuck it out through the first season; based on that, I have no intention of watching future seasons. I could always change my mind, if the show becomes something I’d actually want to watch. I had two big problems with it:
I found the show to be visually unappealing in the extreme. Everything was severely undersaturated; the whole palette is hideously drab grays and browns. There were occasional splashes of color but even those were muted and dull.
Few, if any, of the characters were appealing. Milly Alcock’s Rhaenyra was starting to grow on me, but then they did the time-jump/recasting thing, and while I think Emma D’Arcy is a fine actor, Rhaenyra’s behavior in the latter half of the season was nothing to root for. Daemon was impishly fun here and there, but they didn’t do enough with him. Beyond them… ugh. It’s hard to sympathize with a bunch of selfish nobles who casually murder civilians and are just fighting over who gets to be the biggest dickhead. Game of Thrones gave us half a dozen characters right from the get-go who were either sympathetic (e.g. Ned, Jon, Arya, Cat) or exciting/charming/fun (e.g. Varys, Jaime, Tyrion, Drogo) or both.
Both of those together were just the death knell. I could deal with generally subpar characters if the show was fun to look at (lookin’ at you, Rings of Power), or a visually unremarkable show if it had fun characters (lots of shows), but both? Yikes.
Its also just so dour. Even in the first season you had Tyrion quips and some sarcastic characters like Bronn. Having some amusement and some likable characters can go pretty far.
We all remember you were less than intrigued . You have offered up Lord of the Rings as a contrast and compare and that is the series I found supremely wanting. The main lead, I found her painfully generic. Many of the supporting players almost inert. The look of the vistas, the sailing ships, the landscapes were all very competent and often times breathtaking, but it almost felt like the entire world building was contained in a glass terrarium that was artfully planted but with very little tension or stakes save for my favorite episode, basically the formation of Mordor. Yet I haven’t given the series much thought since. No orcs in my nightmares.With HOD, right out the gate, you were hurled into dark world of muck and mud, palace intrigue and signature violence. The reset (changing many of the actors) forward a decade or so embraced the backstory and with that became utterly compelling until the last episode. It was like SUCCESSION but with viscera and dragons. And the performances all around were remarkable.I guess that’s why there’s so many flavors of jelly beans…………..
With HOD, right out the gate, you were hurled into dark world of muck and mud, palace intrigue and signature violence. The reset (changing many of the actors) forward a decade or so embraced the backstory and with that became utterly compelling until the last episode. The only thing I’d agree with there is that HoD is dark. As in, the exposure grading is laughably dark, and the day for night shooting is astoundingly bad.
The reset (changing many of the actors) forward a decade or so embraced the backstory and with that became utterly compelling until the last episode. That’s a funny way of writing that they took the compelling arc of Rhaenyra deciding she would never become a princess/queen whose sole purpose was to produce heirs, and then ignoring that completely and immediately after the time-jump without explanation.
Guess it was fitting for a “dark world of muck and mud” = shit happens (or more that they’re all trapped in their roles), but that’s arguably not really entertaining to watch. HotD, like LotR: RoP, were both self-serious, poorly plotted, almost charmless works of fantasy fiction. More in common with the Hobbit movies than the LotR movies.
Mjea, I think HOD and ROP are the opposites. HOD looks and feels like realistic show within semi-realistic universe. Also the actors and writing is really really good, not to mention all the props and costumes.ROP is bunch of pretty pictures and someone forgot to write the script. And none of the actors are comfortable in their roles. And sad thing is that people are hung up on silly stuff like skin color, but miss the fact that none of the script makes no sense what so ever. Every line is as corny as they come. Heck Shannara was more coherent series. I really fail to see where all the money went. Apart from the yacht.
Also come on. I’m still in the grays. I’ve been commenting here about 10 years and I would claim I haven’t been misbehaving.
We see you!
The aspects you don’t like about it aren’t going to change, unfortunately, and I’m with you on that. There’s not a single even barely likable or relatable character in the source material, and it all proceeds like you would expect. It’s literally just a retread of GoT but without any characters that you might be able to care about. All of the characters are massive, selfish, murderous assholes. I suspect that a large part of this extended period between seasons is trying to write a script that hits oncoming the major plots points while trying to find anything relatable about these characters.
Well I respect your opinion but really this site is the only place almost where I find people that think the MCU is doing well as it is now and that HotD was bad.
So?
I’m starting to think that the site’s owners are shorting Disney stock.
Another year and I will forget I watched 80% of the last season.
Not terribly sure why this would be news. I’m significantly more surprised when a non-network show actually airs one season a year these days. Even a lot of small order comedies are regularly taking 18 months or longer to crank out a season. Every year I get caught off guard that What We Do in the Shadows actually comes back like clockwork, since it feels more like the exception than the rule any more.
The whole first season I felt like I was doing the “you can go on. But watch yourself, counselor.” I’m not sure how much longer I’ll hang if the next season gives me little more drive than my vague curiosity to know why the show exists.
It was the best show of 2022. I wish I could get more in 2023, but I’ll settle for something equally as good in 2024.
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You must’ve missed watching Better Call Saul.And there was also Severance, Sandman, Strange New Worlds.. and that’s just shows starting with S.
Stranger Things (4)
Succession?
I think Severance and Andor were better but yes one of the best.
Two years? Wow. One would expect they had a solid plan, and that they were writing and prepping season 2 while the first season aired. I don’t think audiences are that patient. All shows that have had long breaks between seasons have suffered and have lost viewers.
I honestly forgot this show was still around. That isn’t meant to be backhanded, just with everything else I honestly forgot about it despite a ton of got/lotr articles last year.
A show like House Of The Dragon requires teams to produce essentially 10 Marvel movies per season. So it would make sense to make sure that the actual script is good before starting to put pixel to screen—as opposed to Marvel, which pre-visualizes action sequences before the script is even written. LMAO. Not only did you link to Insider, but you linked to a video where the interviewee had already denounced the interview for being an utter hackjob and saying logically and objectively false things, like Marvel “pre-visualizes action sequences before the script is even written.” As Edwards has pointed out there’s nothing to previz unless there’s an actual script to previz. That video is utter BS. The editor of Insider ended up adding the mea culpa:
Editor’s Note: Previs is a collaboration between previs artists, directors, producers, and other department heads. Directors have a role in guiding and producing the previs, and some furnish the storyboarding materials on which previs is based.At the top of the article after it was called out for being utter BS. Though it just should’ve been retracted.It’s also a bit comical when making a HotD/Marvel comparison about previz when Third Floor did the previz for GoT and does the previz for HotD.
I’m getting to the point where the HotD/GoT style of nihilism mixed with petty bullshit just isn’t for me. I get enough shittiness in the real world, ya know? I don’t need to see incest babies tearing each other apart.
I could be reading this article wrong but I feel like you wholly misunderstood the interview in Variety – below is a quote you included with one additional sentence for context:Is Bloys focused on one “Thrones” series at a time?“My philosophy is a good script is number one priority,” he says. “I am not doing it based on wanting to have one a year, two a year. I want to do it based on the scripts that we’re excited about.”He’s not talking about HotD S2 – he’s talking about whether or not he would greenlight more shows set in the Game of Thrones universe.A writer on HotD said they were wrapping up the script for the finale back in December and multiple publications have reported that filming is set to start pretty soon. It’s coming out in 2024 because they plan for the filming to take 8-9 months, not because the scripts are still being perfected.
No, this isn’t a “good thing” I am tired of waiting 2-3 years between seasons of TV. The first couple of seasons of Game of Thrones had just 1 year between them, and they were brilliant. You know which season spent more than a year in production? The last one.Imagine if “House of the Dragon” lasts 8 seasons like its progenitor, but with 3 years between each season, that’s a 21 year TV show, how many shows have maintained momentum over 21 years? How does anyone think this is a sustainable model?I’m all for “when it’s done”, but creativity needs deadlines, it needs limits. I don’t want to see “the best show ever” I want to see a show… ever.
Seriously, take your time guys. It’s cool. Take as long as you want. I can wait indefinitely to see more HotD.
HoD was shite. If the show was actually good, the writers wouldn’t need a long time to produce new episodes. Westworld is a great example of taking a long time between seasons to just produce mediocre content.
I’m still waiting for another murdur of someone’s durdur
Sounds to me like they’ve run out of ideas… kind of like GRRM.
Watching The Last of Us has been a really refreshing reminder of what well-executed spectacle looks like. That show knows how to shoot a special effects driven sequence set at night, at the very least.
House of the Dragon kind of stunk. It was boring and “safe” since they
had to walk on egg shells to appease woke culture. Characters were cast based off diversity requirements rather than storyline, the timeline and swapping out actors was weird, etc. The whole thing felt
rushed and somewhat of a train wreck. Think it’s safe to say that the
Game of Thrones world has run it’s course.