Game of Thrones' final season may have split opinions, but the franchise continues to find success on HBO. Several spin-offs are in the works, though only the prequel series House of the Dragon has reached our screens, with a second season set to premiere later this year.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight may be up next, while Kit Harington's Jon Snow sequel is also believed to still be in development.
Taking to his blog, Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin shared an update not on those, but three animated projects which are said to be in the works. While HBO initially scrapped two of them, the writer sounds optimistic about both the other two and one more which has since been added to the list.
"As it happens, HBO and I have our own animated projects, set in the world of A Song of Ice & Fire," Martin confirmed. "None of them have been greenlit yet, but I think we are getting close to taking the next step with a couple of them."
"When this last round of development started a few years back, we had four ideas for animated shows, with some great talents attached. Writers rooms and summits, outline and scripts followed in due course...but, alas, two of the original projects were subsequently shelved. Work on the other two animated projects continues apace, however."
Adding that "nothing is ever dead for good in Hollywood," Martin made it clear he remains optimistic about those scrapped projects getting a second chance and suggested the ideas could be recycled in other mediums, such as a graphic novel. As for that third show, it's a live-action series which has made the shift to animation!
"We have moved Nine Voyages, our series about the legendary voyages of the Sea Snake, over from live-action to animation. A move I support fully," Martin said. "Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live-action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to...well, on and on and on."
"There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation. So we now have three animated projects underway."
We'll see whether any of these actually pan out, particularly as HBO has thrown a great many Game of Thrones ideas at the wall in recent years, with only House of the Dragon sticking...so far, anyway!
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.