With House of the Dragon set to return with a highly anticipated new season, George R.R. Martin has even more good news for fans: The Game of Thrones spinoff that was reportedly scrapped at HBO is back in development.
Martin confirmed the news in a blog post shared Tuesday, in which he announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eboni Booth is currently working on a new pilot script for the series Ten Thousand Ships.
“She’s an amazingly talented young playwright, and a joy to work with; when not writing and producing her prize-winning plays on- and off-Broadway, she has been kept busy by me and HBO, working on a new pilot for TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, a GAME OF THRONES spinoff about Nymeria and the Rhoynar,” Martin wrote.
He added, “We’re all very excited about this one… though we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for ten thousand ships, three hundred dragons, and those giant turtles.”
The spinoff will be a prequel series set 1,000 years before Game of Thrones. It will follow the story of Princess Nymeria, who led the Rhoynar survivors to Dorne after they were defeated by the Valyrians.
The project was previously in development under writer Bryan Helgeland who took his own approach on the Game of Thrones legend.
Helgeland spoke on the scrapped project in a recent interview with Inverse. “It came out great, but I think they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original,” Helgeland said. “That’s why it hasn’t been picked up yet, but nothing is ever dead. My script was based on Queen Nymeria and this little blurb about her that was in a Westeros encyclopedia.”
He compared Nymeria’s story to “the story of Moses” as he described his take on the legend: “Her country gets ruined and her people are forced to live on the water, which is why the show was called ‘Ten Thousand Ships.’ They end up having to leave and find a new home like the Israelites leaving Egypt. She’s leading all these people, trying to hold everyone together but things are always in danger of falling apart as they travel around a fictionalized version of the Mediterranean, looking for a new home to settle in.”
Though the project was ultimately scrapped, Helgeland told Inverse that Martin “signed off” on his script. Amanda Segel was later also hired to write a script for the series, but now it appears the show has found new life in Booth.
There were also rumors of a spinoff series focusing on Jon Snow after the events of Game of Thrones, though that project was also scrapped.
For now, fans have House of the Dragon to hold them over until A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the prequel series HBO recently greenlit and cast, premieres.
