With Game of Thrones coming to an end after its next season, there is an entirely new Game of Thrones being played at HBO over what will emerge as the network’s next main event series. According to Entertainment Weekly, there is yet another GOT prequel in development, bringing the total number of GOT-related pitches at HBO to five. This latest project sounds especially promising, as it’s being worked up by one of the show’s executive producers and writers, Bryan Cogman, along with George R.R. Martin himself. The author is also working two of the other possible Thrones prequels, and has apparently ruled out that his joint effort with Cogman will have anything to do with Robert’s Rebellion, which put Robert Baratheon in power and instigated all this jockeying for power in Westeros. Besides that, we don’t know much of anything about what narrative threads the possible prequels would focus on, though none will feature members of the current cast. Of course, none of these hypothetical shows are guaranteed to reach production, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be until after real Game of Thrones ends. So seeing any end product is likely at least two years out — plenty of time for five more possible prequels to be announced.
Update: Martin has added some information to the news broken earlier today by EW with a post on his blog. While the shepherd of Thrones doesn’t share any story details, he does tell fans, “I can say that, like the other pilots, it will be a prequel rather than sequel, a successor rather than a spinoff. Bryan’s series will be an adaptation, and one that will thrill most fans of the books, I think, set during a very exciting period of Westerosi history. And I’ll be working with him every step of the way; we’re going to be co-creating the show.†And of the other four series ideas currently being worked on, he Martin, “You should not expect to see all five shows, though, at least not immediately.. much as I might love the idea, HBO is not about to become the GAME OF THRONES network… but we could possibly see two or even three make it to the pilot stage… but I should not speculate, you folks get WAY too excited. Truth is, no one knows. Least of all me.â€