House of the Dragon Season 2 will air “early summer” 2024

Chris Tilly
Matt Smith with a big dragon in House of the Dragon.

New footage from House of the Dragon Season 2 screened for journalists today, followed by an announcement that the show will air in the “early summer” of 2024.

House of the Dragon is a Game of Thrones prequel that’s been a huge success for HBO. Based on George R.R. Martin’s GOT book Fire & Blood, the 10 episodes of Season 1 aired from August 2022 to October 2022.

The debut episode drew enough viewers for Season 2 to be immediately greenlit, and the returning cast as well as new members of the ensemble have been busy shooting the follow-up at the UK’s Leavesden Studios.

Reporters saw the first trailer from the sequel series at an event in New York this morning. Which was followed by an announcement by HBO.

House of the Dragon Season 2 will air “early summer” 2024

According to Variety, HBO’s network chief Casey Bloys said that Season 2 of House of the Dragon will air in the “early summer” of 2024. Which is a little earlier in the year than Season 1.

Bloys also revealed that another Game of Thrones spinoff – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight – will shoot next spring, pending the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

House of the Dragon hasn’t been affected by that issue however, as those scripts were finished before the writer’s strike, while the actors are under Equity contracts rather than SAG-AFTRA.

Who is in Season 2 of House of the Dragon?

House of the Dragon actors who are returning for Season 2 include Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, Rhys Ifans, Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham.

New cast members – and their characters – are as follows:

  • Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers
  • Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong
  • Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower
  • Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull

As for plot, Graham McTavish – who plays Ser Harrold Westerling – teased some Season 2 details late last year. “I think the way that it’s going, is it’s leading to civil war,” he told Metro. “Civil war is that great thing that countries indulge in when they haven’t got anybody else to go and fight, they seem to just like fighting amongst themselves just to keep their hand in, and this is no different. They’ve had peace for a long, long time, and suddenly they are quite literally destroying the kingdom from within and that’s what makes it so interesting, so I would expect more of that – more division, more taking sides.”

You can find everything we know about House of the Dragon Season 2 here, while for more on the series, head here.