In addition to confirming that HBO Max is dropping the “HBO” to become Max, Warner Bros. Discovery announced a slate of new content at the media event earlier this week. One series revealed at the event was a Game of Thrones spinoff called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. HBO didn’t share many details, but on Friday, George R.R. Martin took to his blog to pull back the curtain on the upcoming project.
A third Game of Thrones series is coming
Backing up a bit, this spinoff has been rumored for quite a while now. We first wrote about it over two years ago. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a collection of Martin’s three Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, the first of which is called The Hedge Knight. In his recent blog post, Martin confirmed that the HBO series will adapt the first novella.
He also revealed that the season will likely consist of six episodes, though that could change. Ira Parker, who wrote the fourth episode of House of the Dragon, has already finished writing the script for the pilot episode of The Hedge Knight.
Martin, who says that the pilot script is “terrific,” is attached as an executive producer on The Hedge Knight alongside House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal.
“There is no date set yet for the series premiere, or even for the show to begin shooting… but the writing is well underway,” Martin says. “Ira has assembled a small but very talented team, and they are at it already, building on the foundations laid down last year in previous creative summits… and of course on the original novella. The Dunk & Egg novellas are fully-fleshed narratives more like the novels of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE than the imaginary history of FIRE & BLOOD; the stories are right there on the page, and our goal is to produce faithful adaptations of those tales for the screen.”
Martin believes that if The Hedge Knight is a success, the team hopes to adapt The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight (the other two novellas) next. The author also wants to have published the other Dunk and Egg stories floating around in his head by then.
But first, as he admits, he needs to finish writing The Winds of Winter.
If you want to get a head start on Dunk and Egg’s adventures before the series debuts, you can buy A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wherever books are sold.
