With mere days to go before Sunday’s highly anticipated launch of House of the Dragon Season 3, showrunner Ryan Condal is already teasing Season 4, aka the final installment in the Game of Thrones prequel series.
“We’re actively writing,” he said at a recent press conference attended by Gold Derby. “We actually are starting to turn drafts over to HBO. This is early, we will keep iterating. I don’t put the script down until they actually take it away from me in production.”
The Emmy-nominated producer continued, “We’re as far ahead as we’ve ever been at this point in crafting a new season, while we’re still [delivering post-production on] the old one. That goes to show the machine is up and running and it’s on its feet. But it’s also the fourth season — the end — the final act — in a story we’ve been waiting to tell for many years. We’re all really excited about doing it.”
House of the Dragon is based on the novel Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, creator of the Game of Thrones universe. Martin and Condal are co-creators of the TV adaptation of HotD.
The first two seasons received mixed reviews from those who thought the story was moving too slowly. However, based on the Season 3 reviews, critics are fully on-board with the new pace, and are even comparing it to the heights of Game of Thrones.
“The show has always been: we have a plan, we’re going to stick to it, we’re not going to listen to the noise in between,” Condal said while addressing fans who complained about the slow-burn of Season 2. “I realize that this is a four-season show, and you have to wait two years in between each chapter, but ultimately this is one story we’re telling.
“To get upset about something midway is to react in the middle of a play and you don’t like the turn that the story took in the middle. There’s a whole separate two acts coming and I think that’s where we sort of are.”
However, the showrunner says he understands viewers’ “frustration.” “It’s a long downtime between seasons. It takes a long time to make the show. Prep and shooting of the show — and this is after scripts are written — take a year, and then it takes seven-eight months to make dragons. So, do the math. It’s not possible to come out every year,” he explained.
The he added jokingly, “I’m very sorry, but you guys decided to be fans of the show called House of the Dragon.“
The third season of HotD opens by adapting the epic naval conflict known as “The Battle of the Gullet.” Having previously compared the battle to The Lord of the Rings, Condal told the media, “People have become very accustomed to Game of Thrones seasons having a slow build and then there’s an explosion, maybe midway through, and then certainly near the end. The fun of this one was, ‘Let’s hit everybody.’ The bell rings in the boxing ring and they come out and we throw our haymaker right away.”
Condal compared Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra Targaryen to “chosen one” characters like Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Frodo Baggins. But will the queen be as successful in the long run?
“Just because the character is [who they are] in this single moment in time, does not mean that is who that character is for all time,” he said. “That would be boring to do. How does that play out when you tell a main character that they’re the one, the gods have chosen them to rule, and put the power of six dragons behind them? Well, you know, at some point they start believing their own press, don’t they? And they believe that they can do anything.”
House of the Dragon Season 3 premieres June 21 on HBO.
