Game of Thrones Prequel House of the Dragon Will Likely Premiere in 2022

House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel series focused on the Targaryen dynasty, will likely premiere in 2022, according to HBO boss Casey Bloys. According to Variety, Bloys said “his best guess” is that House of the Dragon's release date will be sometime in 2022. Check out our explainer on when House of the Dragon takes place and some of the events we might see in the prequel. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/10/30/game-of-thrones-prequel-series-house-of-the-dragon-coming-to-hbo"] House of the Dragon was given a straight-to-series order back in October. The new show is co-created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal who will serve as co-showrunners, and counts Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik as an executive producer. Sapochnik is expected to direct the pilot and several other episodes in the show's freshman season. The series will air on both HBO and WarnerMedia's upcoming streaming service HBO Max. Bloys also gave Variety some insight into why HBO's other Game of Thrones spinoff from Jane Goldman (which was unofficially being referred to as "The Longest Night") ultimately didn't get picked up to series after a high-profile pilot starring Naomi Watts was filmed. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=game-of-thrones-every-major-characters-first-and-last-appearance&captions=true"] “Pilots – sometimes they come together, sometimes they don’t,” said Bloys. “And I would say that was very much the case here. There’s nothing I would point to and say ‘Oh, this was the problem.’” Bloys also noted that one of the hurdles for the Goldman project was the fact that it wasn't based on any existing source material. “That [prequel] was 8,000 years before the current show, so it required a lot more invention,” he said. “One of the benefits of ‘House of the Dragon’ is there was a text from George and there was a little bit more of a roadmap. [Goldman’s prequel] did have more challenges in terms of establishing a world, but I think she handled that beautifully… there wasn’t one glaring thing.” House of the Dragon is based on "Fire and Blood," Martin's history of the Targaryen family, published in 2018. Below, watch IGN's exclusive interview with Martin and Condal from 2016, in which the two talked at length about their sci-fi and fantasy passions and their friendship. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2016/02/24/george-rr-martin-and-colony-creator-on-the-golden-age-of-sci-fi-and-fantasy"]