House of the Dragon Season 3 is already in “active” development

Ready your dragons: months before the release of the second season, House of the Dragon Season 3 has already entered active development, according to a new report.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the Game of Thrones prequel chronicles the Dance of the Dragons, the infamous Targaryen civil war that brought a once-impenetrable dynasty to its knees in a storm of treachery and dragonflame.

Coming three years after the original series kneecapped its legacy with a disastrous closing stretch, House of the Dragon defied the skeptics with some of the most extraordinary television of 2022. Viewership was similarly weighty, boasting the strongest figures since the aforementioned, notorious finale.

The next steps of the dance are fast approaching, but HBO is clearly confident in the series – because work on Season 3 is already underway.

House of the Dragon Season 3 is in development already

House of the Dragon Season 3 has entered active development, according to Redanian Intelligence, a reputable source on all things Westeros.

“We’ve learned that work on House of the Dragon Season 3 such as active script writing and other very early things begin fully this month, January 2024,” the outlet wrote.

“It’s too early to speak of any filming dates, but if previous seasons are any indication, the scripts realistically won’t be done until about Q3/Q4 of this year…. perhaps we’re looking at a late 2024/early 2025 filming start, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

The prequel is expected to run for four seasons, making it half as long as its predecessor.

In late 2024, Martin visited the set and caught up with showrunner Ryan Condal. While admiring the production design and getting a sneak preview at the “gut-wrenching” opening episodes, he also “spent two days locked in a room with Ryan Condal and his writing staff (Sara Hess, Ti Mikkel, David Hancock, and Philippa Goslett) talking about the third and fourth seasons of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.”

“They were lively, fun discussions, and we got some good work done… though two days was not nearly enough. There is so much ground to cover that I am not sure twenty days would have been enough,” he wrote on his blog.

Other spinoffs are still in development too, including Nine Voyages, following the “legendary” voyages of Corlys Velaryon, aka the Sea Snake. Martin recently announced that the series had pivoted from live-action to animation, due to the “prohibitively expensive” costs of the show’s set pieces in real life.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is due to premiere on HBO in Summer 2024. Find out more here.