“Fire will reign,” reads the tagline on the poster for HBO‘s upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff series. However, it won’t “reign” until at least 2022.
During a stop on the Television Critics Association tour on Wednesday, HBO programming chief Casey Bloys told Variety that his “best guess” for the premiere date of House of the Dragon wouldn’t be for another two years.
The highly anticipated prequel series was announced last October during an event intended to promote the network’s forthcoming streaming service, HBO Max.
House of the Dragon is set to take place 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones. It will be based upon the 2018 George R. R. Martin novel Fire & Blood, which chronicles the complete history of House Targaryen, a prominent family within the series.
The series will be co-created by producer Ryan Condal and Martin, 71. The author is best known for writing the Song of Ice and Fire novels, which served as the initial inspiration for Game of Thrones.
On the status of the other, since-cancelled spinoff of the smash-hit series, Bloys said: “Pilots — sometimes they come together, sometimes they don’t.
“I would say that was very much the case here. There’s nothing I would point to and say: ‘Oh, this was the problem.'”
However, Bloys praised its director, Jane Goldman, for “beautifully” taking on the challenge of building a world inspired by Martin’s works that would have taken place 8,000 years before the time period in which his novels are set.
For that reason, the programmer said House of the Dragon was at an advantage.
HBO Max will compete against the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime and the more recently launched Apple TV+ and Disney+ when it debuts this May.
The streaming service will house many of HBO’s popular shows, including Game of Thrones. For more information on the service, visit the official HBO Max website.