The House Of The Dragon is shuttered until 2024, HBO says
Network head Casey Bloys told fans not to hold their breaths for more Game Of Thrones in 2023
Aux News House
Having once again ignited the internet’s collective passion for dragons, and bad things happening to people near dragons, HBO is now shutting the supply right back down for more than a year. This is per Vulture, which had a recent conversation with network head Casey Bloys, who revealed that you shouldn’t get your hopes up for a second season of Game Of Thrones spin-off House Of The Dragon in 2023.
“Don’t expect it in ’23, but I think sometime in ’24,” Bloys said, as part of a much longer interview focused on the show’s recent success as a hybrid of streaming and linear TV watching. (Among other things, Bloys contends that dropping the show into the old Game Of Thrones timeslot made for a much stronger “appointment television” vibe, even among viewers on HBO Max.) Discussing return dates, the network head was vague but insisted he wasn’t being coy, saying that, “We’re just starting to put the plan together, and just like last time, there are so many unknowns…you don’t want to say it’s going to be ready on this date, and then you have to move it.”
Bloys wasn’t any more straightforward regarding questions about a second Thrones spin-off, which have been kicking around ever since the network issued a wide canvas for possible follow-ups to the massively successful series several years back. (At least one project before House got to the pilot stage, Bloodmoon, only to be rejected by HBO.) RE: a possible spin-off that might also keep the delays away, Bloys only said, “I try not to comment too much on development, so there’s not a whole lot to say, other than when we find the story that George [R.R. Martin] is happy with and we’re happy with, we’ll move forward.”
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More time for people to find the Game of Thrones scene that completely spoils the ending.
It does not spoil the ending. It spoils a major death that happens about 75% through the story but its neither the end of the civil war nor the story.There will quiet a bit of stuff happen after that event.
Bloys only said, “I try not to comment too much on development, so there’s not a whole lot to say, other than when we find the story that George [R.R. Martin] is happy with and we’re happy with, we’ll move forward.” I was going to mention the need for the appropriate amount of time for script massaging, so that the end production that’s built upon it comes out correctly, but yes, we very much have the GRRM aspect too.It’s not a bad thing. Sandman’s production was delayed until Neil Gaiman was happy with how it was likely to turn out, and that stance has been extremely justified.
Will the next announcement be that hbomax is going all unscripted reality TV? Asking for a friend.
Survivor: KremlinNew HBOMax series!
I would honestly watch that. Then the spinoff Florida version.
The Florida version is just the same show.
Isn’t Survivor a CBS show? Which means it would be on Paramount+, not HBO Max?
If only things were that simple. Look at Yellowstone, on Paramount Network for TV and Netflix for streaming, lol.
I think what’s more egregious is that none of the goddamn Trek movies are on P+
Take your god damn star! LOL
That would save me $20 a month…
This seems to be a new trend where they film an eight- or ten-episode series and then take two years to come up with the next installment (looking at you, Foundation and Rings of Power). Enough of this BS.
Right, it’s the “we’re getting the plan together” part that seems weird to me. I understand scheduling conflicts and everything, but you literally don’t even have a plan for season 2? Shouldn’t there be a general plan for the overarching story before you even start season 1?
Costs money to put a plan for season 2 together … even if done during season 1 planning … so perhaps they see it as making good business sense to wait until they know it’s a hit before committing.Which of course gives us these kinds of scheduling complaints instead.Not that I agree, just trying to peer into the madness that is the mind of a TV “suit”.
I’LL ALLOW IT.I don’t even watch this show so I don’t know why I care. lol
Yes and no. I work in production (although nothing NEARLY on the scale of anything like this) and I’m always really surprised when I hear quotes like this about a show they’ve made such a big investment in. The writers and producers should’ve been wrapped up with the majority of their work on the show quite a while ago, and their salaries for pre-production are only going to end up being a fraction of a percent of what HBO has already spent on the show. IMO, this is probably less of a cautious “well, who knows if anyone is going to care about new GoT” and more of a calculated gamble that subscribers who watched the show aren’t going to cancel their subscriptions while they’re waiting for a new season.
good business sense to wait until they know it’s a hit before committing.This is how Anime has always done it (from what I read a few years ago) and is one of the reasons it takes so long for a new season to release. It makes a lot more sense to give things time to breathe instead of trying to force success.
Especially since they literally have the entire story already at their disposal, so you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to just carve it out into the four seasons they want.
Pretty sure its only 2 seasons.
I suspect he means less a plan for where the story goes, and more a plan for how they’re going to produce it: what actors they’ll hire for what roles, where they’ll film each location, what order they’ll film it in, who will make all the costumes, how many shops will do all the CGI, etc etc.A plan for a season of a show this big must be massive.
They literally planned the show to be a set story over 2 seasons start to finish. Really odd that they now act like they have no idea whats happening or when. Should have filmed both seasons back to back.
It’s always taken a minimum of 2-3 years to turnaround a blockbuster theatrical sequel, and those never run more than 3 hours. With the move towards treating a season of serialized television more like a 10 hour movie, it makes sense that the turnaround time would increase to be more in line with theatrical standards. These shows tend to use some tricks to ease production, like isolating the heavy VFX to only a few episodes, reusing sets as much as possible, and padding the runtime with lots of talking. But there’s still just a lot of content to produce there, and long gaps between seasons will be the new normal.
This is all true, but I still recall a world where you’d get like, 25 eps of Star Trek TNG, wait three months, then get a run of 25 more eps over the next nine months. Sure, production values were nowhere near that of modern shows, but they produced three times as much content at a relatively brisk pace. And while the VFX were a lot worse, it was probably a lot harder to pull off, using actual physical models for a lot of the effects.
I’m not hating on TNG, but most of that show took place on one set with almost no location filming. Whenever they leave the bridge and beam down somewhere, it’s all smoke and mirrors on a soundstage. Anything too expensive happens offscreen and is mentioned in passing dialogue. The limited space scenes were done with practical models and optical compositing, but just because they didn’t use CGI, that doesn’t mean it was “easier” than the incredibly complex VFX sequences seen in stuff like House of the Dragon and Rings of Power.TNG was a great accomplishment in light of the limitations of TV at the time. They had a well oiled machine that cranked out 25 hours of content per season, but they didn’t do it with anywhere near the same production values as modern prestige TV. Now, audiences want to see the whole epic battle onscreen, they want to see the dragons and other creatures in action, they want to see all these fantastical locations rendered out in detail. And we’re getting that. But they can’t use the old TNG playbook to make the content that quickly.
The cgi for the dragons takes a lot of time and money. Comparing it to star trek ng is kinda rediculous. They don’t even leave the studio and ive seen plays with better sets. That show felt dated the day it released.
Too bad they didn’t fill the runtime with character development. I know more about the dire wolves in GoT than I know about any of the characters in Dragons.
Might be niggling with the term “sequel,” but Marvel was a movie a year out of the gate, up to two a year very quickly, then to three a year. So, it “always took” 2-3 years until Marvel wrote the new playbook nearly 15 years ago that everybody wants to follow without actually reading it. There is definitive proof-of-concept that you can absolutely lay out and execute an ambitious long-term plan, and there are multiple subsequent proofs-of-concept that most studio execs are the kind of face-spiting nose-cutters that golden-egg-laying geese should avoid at all costs.
The trick with the MCU is that there is very little overlap in cast and crew across projects, which allows them to crank out content more quickly. Thor 1 was technically a sequel to Iron Man 2, but aside from a couple brief cameos there’s almost nothing connecting the two. The MCU’s innovation was that if you concentrate on the big picture story ahead of time, you can have multiple unrelated creative teams working simultaneously.But that doesn’t really translate to TV. I don’t think it would be feasible to have two different showrunners writing and filming two different seasons of the same show at the same time, or even on staggered schedules — even if they could connect all those dots, the cast wouldn’t be able to keep up. The MCU still only outputs 6-7 hours of film content per year, which is less than a typical prestige drama, and their streaming series have all been more like one-off limited series to date. Still no sign of that second season of Loki.
Game of Thrones already did pretty much that, splitting the cast up in different groupings filming in different locations from season to season. I get that that approach wouldn’t fit for just anything and everything, but if there’s a setting that lends itself to precisely those kind of logistics it’s this one.
Enough of this BS.This “BS” is studio finally realizing their release schedules are not sustainable, nor is the way they treat “their” (usually third-party contracts) VFX artists.Big budget series keep on becoming grander and more ambitious, something had to give at some point. I don’t mind waiting for my entertainment if it means the people working on it aren’t forced into crunch culture.
To be fair, HotD wasn’t renewed for a second season until the first one started airing. I’m sure it takes a long time to produce. I like it; I’ll wait.
If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. There’s zero chance that this show wasn’t greenlit for its full run once the decision to produce it was made.
The expectations surrounding the quality level of these series has gone up exponentially, especially in the past decade. As another commenter noted, these are essentially 8-10 hour movies. Many big budget movies have 2-3 year development cycles and they’re only around 2 hours long.If you want something that has the epic scale of Game of Thrones, it should go without saying that it takes an insane amount of time, effort, and money to make it happen. I was reading that this season cost between $150-$200 million and filming took place over the course of 10 months.HBO wants to ensure their financial investment gets them the maximum amount of subscribers, watch time, and critical acclaim. The only way that happens is if they have the time to ensure that everything is executed at the highest level possible. Rushing everything is a great way to waste a ton of money making something awful that disappoints everyone.
It seems par for the course for every streaming show now. Show’s that consistently put out a new season every year are definitely in the minority on streaming services now. On one hand I get it, shows are complex, scheduling can be difficult, etc etc, but on the other hand networks used to(and still do) pump out 24+ eps of shows every year. People also lose interest, I’ve given up on Westworld because I didn’t care to figure out what happened on the previous season two years ago. And it’s not just “prestige” tv either. Why the huge gaps between seasons of The Dragon Prince or between the two seasons of Space Force?
Media companies are risk-averse. They didn’t want to greenlight a second season until they knew there was an audience for it, and thus didn’t until the first season had wrapped, finished, and was airing. Why should the creatives put real money and time into a S2 that may never exist?I’m fine waiting 2 years for a better show.
I’m expecting massive battles involving thousands of ships, over a dozen dragons, cities and situations and characters we’ve never seen and who knows what else…I’d be far more worried if they said they’d have all that ready in a single year. Get it done right, not fast.
Sure except that season 1 had pretty much none of any of those things. Just a giant darkly lit bore fest stuck in the same 3 locations stuck on the same 5 characters that all look the same with nothing of consequence happening because everything bad happened to random characters and 36 time jumps removed any repercussions of anything.
What a weird take.Scheduling is an issue, especially when you’ve got a large ensemble cast, all the main cast likely have other projects they’re also working on. Not to mention having to get permits and the like to film on location across several different countries, especially since season 2 onwards is likely going to have scenes in way more diverse locations than Kings Landing and Dragonstone.Plus there’s the CGI which you can’t rush.
Yeah, I was really enjoying Foundation and then wait 3+years? ’22 problems, le sigh
I wouldn’t call it new. The Sopranos seems to have followed that model twenty years ago.
The sopranos didn’t have the cgi dragons does. Its a more complex show in every way.
Agreed. Having a year or more between seasons just kills any excitement or momentum a show has. House of the Dragon was basically guaranteed a second season from the get go, so why weren’t the writers writing the second season while the first season was filming? Most people work every week of the year, with a week or two for vacation if they are lucky, why is show production any different? Give the actors a couple week break between seasons and then get back to work. Shows like Star Trek and other fantasy/sci-fi shows manage to put out a season a year, so there’s no excuse why HotD can’t follow suit.Actors have gotten the industry to treat them as some special category of worker. They want to be able to do different projects and “challenge themselves”, “spread their wings”, and other cliches. In the end actors are labor and I’m quite sure there are prospective actors, currently serving as waitresses, waiters, bartenders or the such around L.A. who would be willing to work year round for much higher pay.
Remember when pretty much all shows has 22 episodes per season? Some still do, but there has been a growing trend. First it seems shows started doing 12-13 episodes per season. Then 10. Then 8. I think The Watcher only had 7
As filming something incredibly expensive before you know if people like the overall direction is always a great choice.
Worked out so well for Justice League which starting filming before Batman V Superman even opened.
So just what exactly can you to do about it?
Oh, I know. You could complain.
Tersely written, of course.
Those ALWAYS WORK.
What’s BS about it? Not getting your TV treats fast enough?
I mean, it makes sense these series that are far more cinematic than your average TV show will take longer to produce. The Mandalorian not coming back until next Feb or March, Rings of Power not coming back until 2025 (!), but TV series aren’t movies. The narrative pace is such that, especially with cliffhangers, asking the audience to care as much in 2 or 3 years is sort of a gamble. I suppose we’ll see…
Oh fuck me ring of power taking that long to come back? I have liked what I’ve seen so far but that far out date really dulls the enthusiasm.
All Amazon is saying now is late 2024 at the earliest. Season 2 hasn’t even started production yet, so that seems likely. It too them 2 years to shoot and produce the first season, firing up production after COVID had died down.‘The Rings Of Power’ Season 2: Potential Premiere Date, Cast, & What To Know (msn.com)
That’s nuts to me. They knew they were locked in for five seasons – that should give them a lot of leeway to streamline production and planning, including pre-rendering special effects (which is apparently part of the reason it’s more time-consuming now to make these shows).
House of the Dragon I kind of understand. They didn’t want to go all-in that way until they were sure it would be a huge hit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last season of the show (season 3 IIRC) happens quicker than two years now that they know it will stick.
I’m no SFX expert, but I know you can’t just pre-render a bunch of effects independently from the footage. You can only do so much without needing the footage to ensure everything looks natural in the frame. If you want something that’s on this epic of a scale and at this level of quality, it’s going to take time. Even if you try to streamline things as much as possible, there’s just no way around it. People are asking for a cinema quality 8-10 hour fantasy series to be turned around in the same amount of time as an average drama series… that’s just not at all aligned with the reality of film production.
Production on Rings of Power Season 2 has started in the UK earlier this month, but its release is still planned for late 2024 at the earliest.
When they say “at the earliest” I take the pessimistic yet pragmatic view that they mean it.
In light of the very negative reception of the show and the abyssimal ratings relative to what they were expecting they are apparently retooling it completely including sidelining the showrunners and putting new people in charge so that’s why.
*laughs in Venture Bros fan*
Not really an accurate article title, it’s not being shuttered, they’re just not committing to a release date and they don’t expect it to be a year between seasons which is pretty common for shows like this. The article title makes it seem like the show did so badly that they’re cancelling it or that they’re not sure if they’re going to do another season which isn’t the case.
Dragons always look like they’re smiling. But I thought the same thing about the T-rex and velociraptors. Like it must be great being a dinosaur, they’re having such a good time!
Would you not also be happy if you could breathe fire and fly??
You damn right I would!
Just do it right. Don’t rush!
They blew the meager wig budget already, eh?
The long wait is so they can grow their hair naturally /s
Do you have access to horse semen?
I mean, they weren’t even anticipating starting filming until next year and with CGI, post, etc it isn’t exactly a stretch to assume a 2024 drop of Season 2. This isn’t exactly news, but congratulations on framing it extra clickbaity.
They really should do another spin-off show, so that they can alternate years and have no “gap” years in the franchise.
They’re going to spend their gap year backpacking through Southeast Asia.
Timewise, I guess this makes sense since we are a few months away from 2023. Even if they already have pre-production in place so they can start shooting in January, they would be done by summer and then there is the postproduction work to do. So early 2024 would be the probable release date in this optimistic scenario.
Nothing new for HBO: hurry up and wait. Good thing is, HOD pretty much sucked and you all know it. You want to pretend you loved it – you didn’t. It’s not GOT. Luckily, you’ll be getting the abysmal White Lotus and more horrid people to watch on Succession.
HBO has been a mess since the acquisition by Discovery. I don’t think anyone over there knows what the hell is going on at this point.
Hoepfully this gives them time to figure out where the color saturation slider is.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this! This whole for season, I’ve been wondering why everything looks so grayed and washed out. It’s lacking the color and detail that game of thrones had, especially with the dragons.
Meh. I’ll likely have lost interest by then. Just like the interest I lost in Winds died ages ago. The series, while well-acted and written, never struck that same magic for me. It seemed to try to walk the same arc of season 1 of GoT but never captured the same feeling and instead came off as feeling very predictable. By episode two it was extremely clear how it would all unfold and it rendered the next 5 episodes rather moot. Will any of the details constantly laid on us really ever be so important? The finale, as soon as the prince arrived in Storm’s End, was similarly obvious. The only surprise was that perhaps the death was somewhat unintentional. And the time jump. Ugh. The hatred. Pair that with the completely uneven aging and it just really turned me off. And how god damn dark everything is. Why are they still doing this to us… The entire series seems like a prequel to a prequel and it robbed the series of feeling like it had much urgency or direction.
We’ll see what the Discovery+ CEO has to say about it in two years…
Could be worse. Could be on that Venture Bros timeline
Deep cut.
That would put the story arc at about 1962. The Cuban Dragon Crisis.
NETWORK TV ERA : We’ll make 24 episodes of each show per year, every year. Continuing plotlines are forbidden and the main character MUST be either a doctor or a cop.
PEAK TV ERA: This season we made four episodes of our hit show, “Dr. Cop, MDPD.” Continuing plotlines are mandatory. Each episode cost $741 million and filming took place on nine different continents. After this season, no new episodes until three presidential administrations from now. “Peak TV” is when you make two hours of a show per decade.
Dr. Cop is just House Md.
House Md. is Sherlock Doctor.Dr. Cop has a gun.
Hey, it’s worked for British television for decades!
It has not been two years since ring of power its been two weeks.
Just do Dunk & Egg already
Sir Criston Cole will have rage-murdered everyone in the kingdom by then
It’s not that there aren’t legitimate reasons for >12 month schedules; it’s that the inseparable consequences are that it kills pacing while raising the stakes. When it takes that long to release new content, it’s never going to live up to the fans’ expectations. The people who are right now saying “it’s great, I’m happy to wait for more,” are the same people who are going to be disappointed, upset, or both when it doesn’t match their expectations in 18 months or whatever. It’s not like the writing is going to magically improve because you took an extra 6 months in post, and unless you’re making aerial drone footage for an Apple screensaver, the writing is what matters. Better to get something out in a timely manner than to meet some artificial “dragons per minute” metric in the showrunners’ head, IMO. Sure, it’s called “House of the Dragon,” but even Star Trek very rarely focuses on the actual trek part, or the stars for that matter. Just tell the story.