The biggest entertainment news this month has undoubtedly been the union of HBO Max and Warner Bros. Discovery+, coming together to form one massive streaming service simply titled Max. We already know that a seven-season Harry Potter series will be exclusive to the new platform, as will a TV series based on The Conjuring and DC show The Penguin. That, apparently, is only the start of the Max Originals rollout, with HBO also planning a new Game of Thrones prequel – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight.
Originally titled The Tales of Dunk and Egg, the latest GoT prequel was confirmed by HBO and creator George R.R. Martin, putting it in the pile of spin-offs from the original, joining the freshly announced Aegon the Conqueror series and a Jon Snow sequel.
For those who are unfamiliar, Dunk and Egg were the subjects for a three-part series of novellas by George R.R. Martin which were set long before the Westeros we’ve become accustomed to via the likes of Jon Snow, Ned Stark and Tyrion Lannister. Reportedly, the show has been in the very early stages of development for quite some time now, parlaying one of HBO’s most well-known properties into yet another prequel.
Martin himself will write and produce the show along with House of the Dragon’s Ira Parker, Vince Gerardis and Ryan Condal. According to HBO, the series will take place over a century before the events of Game of Thrones, which seemingly positions it after the events of House of the Dragon, which will continue with its second season in 2024 and has already been confirmed for a shortened third season.
Officially, the show follows “a young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”
A recent post on Martin’s blog has shed some light on the new Game of Thrones prequel. First off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is only a working title and all we know about the final title is that it won’t have anything to do with either Dunk or Egg since, according to the author, “Dunk & Egg sounds like a sitcom.”
The word “knight” will definitely be in the final title of the show given Martin wants to communicate knighthood and chivalry as the central themes of these stories.
“HBO has given us a greenlight to film for a full season (not just a pilot), most likely of six episodes… though that is not set in stone, and won’t be until considerably later in the process,” writes Martin.
It’s unlikely that the GoT prequel series will be a miniseries, however, since there are three novellas to draw from: The Hedge Knight (1998), The Sworn Sword (2003) and Mystery Knight (2010). All three novels were eventually released as a compilation called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Hence, the working title for the show.
Obviously, the show will start with the Hedge Knight and while details are very scarce right now we do know that the novel follows the story of how Dunk and Egg first met during a tournament at Ashford Meadow. Martin wrote on his blog that the other novels will come into play for subsequent seasons of the show, although the author – who still hasn’t finished the Game of Thrones book series – also revealed that he has several more Dunk and Egg novellas planned. Although, given the speed at which he actually published these books, that doesn’t mean too much.
“There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought,” Martin admitted. “There’s ‘The Village Hero’ and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between ‘The Hedge Knight’ and ‘The Sworn Sword,’ and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish The Winds of Winter, and then do either A Dream of Spring or volume two of Fire & Blood, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time… and that will keep me ahead of Ira and his merry crew… for a few more years.”
Martin is nothing if not ambitious.
