The writer G.R.R. Martin has not finished the Song of Ice and Fire saga, but he cannot be blamed for the fact that, when writing a fictional universe, he created one with a prolific history and mythology. At HBO, aware of this, they have projects under development set in the same universe as Game of Thrones and, after giving the green light to The House of the Dragon, they now confirm the production of another prequel based on the book The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. .
The official title, for the moment, is A knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight and it will take as reference the tales of Dunk and Egg, some important characters in the history of Westeros: Dunk ended up being the Lord Commander of the Royal Guard while Egg came to occupy the Iron Throne as Aegon V of the Targaryen dynasty roughly a century before Daenerys was crowned.
The Dunk and Egg tales were published between 1998 and 2010 in three installments: The Wandering Knight, The Loyal Sword, and The Mysterious Knight. In 2015, with illustrations by Gary Gianni, they were republished together under the title of The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
The official description, published by media such as The Hollywood Reporter, is as follows: "A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes roamed Westeros: a naive but brave young knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his tiny squire, Egg. Set in a time when the Targaryen lineage still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has yet to pass from living memory, great destinies, powerful enemies and dangerous feats await these unlikely and incomparable friends.
Behind the project is G.R.R. Martin, who participates in the creation of works derived from his fictional universe, and Ira Parker, screenwriter and producer of Dragon House, in addition to having worked on an intimate and critically acclaimed series such as Better Things alongside Pamela Adlon. . Ryan Condal, creator of The House of the Dragon along with Martin, will also participate as executive producer, not unexpected news, considering that Condal has just signed one of the few television phenomena on the air.
At first, after the denouement of Game of Thrones, there was a cautious attitude at HBO. The ending of Jon Snow and the rest of the characters was controversial and audiences were exhausted from the emotional investment and the level of promotion and conversation. They could have a minimum of five projects in the incubator in the development phase but they did not give the go-ahead impulsively: the prequel starring Naomi Watts was canceled after shooting a pilot episode and the first series to produce a complete season was The House of the dragon, which came three years after the end of the series.
However, the Targaryen civil war headed by Olivia Cooke, Emma D'Arcy and Matt Smith has been a dazzling success: 29 million viewers in the United States alone, allowing HBO to establish itself as an essential platform and revalidating the success of universe of G.R.R. Martin on TV. With these results, it was a matter of time before another expansion was announced: the winning project was this A knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight.
It is unknown at what stage of development and approval is the sequel focused on Jon Snow that Kit Harington proposed on his own initiative to HBO. Is now the time for the prequels and maybe later on it will be time to recapture the characters from the original series and push A Song of Ice and Fire into the future?
