'Game Of Thrones' Reportedly Has More Than 1 New Prequel In The Works

Game of Thrones is hitting its victory lap stride. With the series finale retreating in the rearview mirror, the show did its final appearance at San Diego Comic-Con days after receiving a historic 32 Emmy nominations. Awards season may be about looking into the past, but HBO is facing forward into the future with the currently-filming Game of Thrones prequel. And it may not be the only one. So how many Game Of Thrones prequels are in the works? It turns out, there could be more than one.

When HBO realized that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were serious about ending Game of Thrones after eight seasons, it decided to attempt a spinoff series. The premium cable channel has never done this before. If there were a follow-up, like Sex & The City, or Deadwood, it would come years later as a movie.

Out of an abundance of caution, HBO commissioned not one, not two, but five pilot scripts. All five of these potential series were set in Westeros' past, in different eras, giving the producers several options.

In the end, one was greenlit to the next stage, Jane Goldman's prequel set 10,000 years in the past, currently working under the title "Bloodmoon." As for the other four scripts, programming president Casey Bloys said HBO was only concentrating on the one that had passed muster.

But that was directly contradicted by author George R.R. Martin. On his NotABlog, he stated there were at least two prequels still on the table as possibilities. Both of them drew from his Fire & Blood novels that chronicle the history of Targaryen rule on Westeros.

It turns out Martin was telling the truth. Now that the first prequel has finished filming the pilot stage, HBO has hinted these two scripts could be put into production.

At the 2019 Television Critics Association summer press tour, Bloys was happy to announce Goldman's prequel pilot had finished filming. His stated she was "busy in the edit bay," and though he hasn't seen anything yet, he was "very excited by the footage we saw of the cast."

But it was what he told The Wrap after the press conference that got everyone's attention.

I think we have one or two more scripts. But we're gonna see what happens with this one.

Fans have long suspected that HBO would hold a second show in reserve for one big reason. Goldman's prequel is set so far in Westeros' past that the Targaryens didn't exist yet. More importantly, Dragons didn't exist either. The fireholds of Valyria, where the creatures were born, would not be discovered for another 2,000 years.

A Game of Thrones series without dragons? On the one hand, it would be much less expensive. On the other, no dragons. Having a second (or third) prequel to put into production beside it, based on the Targaryen-and-Dragon centric Fire & Blood, is merely being cautious.

Fans will have to wait and see what happens with the current prequel first. Until then, Game of Thrones will be celebrated at the Emmy awards on Sept. 22, 2019.