HBO looking to develop several more Game of Thrones prequels, including Dunk and Egg

HBO wants to order more Game of Thrones prequels. Several of them.

In addition to the upcoming prequel series House of the Dragon, the network is looking to potentially greenlight more shows set in the world of Westeros, sources say.

One of which, just reported by Variety, is a project based on Dunk and Egg in early development. The Dunk and Egg stories by author George R.R. Martin follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and a young Aegon V Targaryen and are set 90 years before the events in Thrones.

But that's not all. HBO has been meeting with several top writers pitching other ideas based on Martin's works. Among the ideas being contemplated is a prequel series based on Robert's Rebellion – the war for the Iron Throne that upended Westeros a couple of decades before the events in Thrones.

One of the writers is a name familiar to HBO genre fans: Bruno Heller, who created the acclaimed historical drama Rome, a series that was seen as a bit of a short-lived precursor to Thrones. That said, no writer is yet officially attached to any project.

All the concepts are prequels set in Westeros and Essos before the events in GoT; there are no sequels or spin-offs from the original series currently under consideration.

The idea is for HBO to go big on Thrones for HBO and HBO Max in a way that's not entirely unlike what Disney has done with Star Wars and Disney+. Disney announced 10 Star Wars shows during its Investor Day conference in December, and the next day the company's stock price shot up 14 percent, to an all-time high. While after Thrones ended in 2019, HBO has struggled to fill the dragon-size hole in its lineup. HBO's parent WarnerMedia is investing heavily in HBO Max in general, seeing the streaming service as its "you win or you die" effort to future-proof the company's entertainment division.

The new move is also similar to HBO's then-unprecedented "bake off" of putting five different Thrones prequel projects into development before the series ended — a process that ultimately resulted in one pilot being shot that did not move forward (the Jane Goldman pilot starring Naomi Watts) and another (House of the Dragon, by co-showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik) being greenlit to series. This new push is arguably more intense, however, as it's not just looking for a single successor but, ideally, more than one worthy title to join House of the Dragon on the air.

That said, this is still early days for the initiative. No projects have been officially put into development as of yet; plans are fluid and could change. HBO had no comment.

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• George R.R. Martin reveals his least favorite Game of Thrones scene across 8 seasons