The Watchers in the Theater: Warner Bros. Plan to Expand ‘Game of Thrones’ Universe Extends to Feature Films
Warner Bros. is continuing its quest to see how many Game of Thrones projects they can get in the can before George R.R. Martin finishes the long-awaited sixth book of his A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Now in development: a feature film set in Westeros, the land in which the fantasy novels and television series were based. As Warner Bros. is not confirming the info that “sources” have leaked to the entertainment press, no real details are available, though.
This is a switch from HBO and Warner’s previous stance on how to present Game of Thrones content. GOT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss announced that they wanted to conclude the series with three feature films instead of its 2019 final season, an idea Martin was fully on board with.
HBO resisted that plan, wanting to keep their popular show within the confines of their streaming and broadcast platforms, and obviously they prevailed. Thrones‘ eighth season concluded (disappointingly to many) in 2019.
But now with Warner Bros., HBO Max’s parent company, under new management with new distribution paradigms (and problems), things could change.
This won’t be the first time the universe has been mined for new material. In n 2022, HBO launched the hit prequel series House of the Dragon, which recently aired its second season. And they are producing another prequel series, called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which they will launch in 2025. Knight is based on a novella penned by Martin called Tales of Dunk and Egg.
There are other ideas in development, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Future projects could be set in a post-Game of Thrones world, although nothing has been announced yet.
As for Martin, there is always a chance that he’ll finish the sixth book in the series, titled The Winds of Winter, which he has allegedly spent the last 14 years working on. (A seventh book, called A Dream of Spring, is considered to be “planned” at this time.) While initially, the storyline in the GOT series was roughly in line with the books each season was adapted from, eventually the show outpaced the books and the writers diverged from Martin’s planned timeline in places.