The much talked about untitled Game of Thrones prequel that was set to star Naomi Watts, is now dead at HBO and will not be moving forward.
The prequel was to focus on the “Age of Heroes” and the first-ever battle between man and White Walker. The pilot came from Jane Goldman and was actually filmed over the summer. Goldman began emailing the cast and crew of the project to let them know that the series was not moving forward and the news was later confirmed by HBO.
Reasons for the pass aren’t exactly clear but rumors suggest that post-production was very long on the project and there were several issues during filming in Northern Ireland. This is a problem that is not unheard of with expensive pilots of this scope and it’s something that even plagued the original Game of Thrones series, although they were able to overcome it. The $10 million pilot for the original series was reportedly a mess according to creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and it was almost entirely re-shot at great expense before HBO execs took the pilot to series.
Perhaps the option to work on fixing the prequel was nixed because HBO has other Game of Thrones-inspired series on the horizon. In September, HBO gave an unofficial pilot green light to a second prequel project from Martin and Ryan Condal, which is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tracks the beginning of the end for House Targaryen.
The now-scrapped prequel series which starred Watts, Miranda Richardson, Joshua Whitehouse, & Marquis Rodrigez among others, was to take place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones in an age dominated by heroic figures like Bran the Builder, credited with creating The Wall, and Lann the Clever, credited with founding House Lannister.
