House of Dragon Season 3 update confirms fans’ worst fears

The latest update regarding the release of House of the Dragon Season 3 cemented fans’ concerns that we’ll be waiting a while for the series’ next installment.

House of the Dragon Season 2 ended in early August 2024, with Team Green and Black gearing up for the bloodiest peak of the Dance of the Dragons.

While fans were sad to no longer see their favorite warring family, excitement was restored when it was announced the show would be getting a Season 3.

However, some viewers were afraid a new entry wouldn’t come for at least two or three years, and those fears were confirmed as it’s been revealed that pre-production for Season 3 will begin on October 31, 2024, with filming beginning in “earlyish 2025.”

HBO

Showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal told Variety the third season was already being written before the Season 2 finale aired. They hoped to start shooting in early 2025, though no dates were confirmed for the start of production.

Fans didn’t take the news of a later release date well as one posted to X/Twitter, “Waiting 2 years for 8 episodes is actually insane when you think about how TV shows used to have 20+ episodes per season every year.”

Another commented, “So if filming starts in ‘earlyish 2025,’ we should expect to see House of the Dragon Season 3 on our screens in ‘middleish 2026.'”

A third viewer pointed out how the series vastly differed from its predecessor: “Reminder that, aside from Season 8, Game of Thrones had a season premiere every year it was airing. This is very ridiculous.”

Game of Thrones delivered a new season every year from Season 1 in 2012 to Season 7 in 2017. However, there was a two-gap after that, as Season 8 came out in 2019 due to “an extended production timeline” and “complicated on-location filming.”

House of the Dragon already started out having significant time between each season, as Season 1 came out in 2022 and Season 2 debuted in 2024.

While there has been no official reason why the series has seen such delays between each installment, one super fan went up to bat to explain these gaps.

“Sorry I’ll defend how long they take on this show to release new episodes cause the dragons look real as f**k,” they wrote. “Like they take their time to perfect that art! Now Stranger Things on the other hand? Need to just drop the last season already it’s been too long.”

For more, check out our House of the Dragon Season 2 review. You can also learn more about all the dragons featured in the show and see all of the House of the Dragon filming locations.