“I’m really excited. I think you’re going to be in for a great surprise on how we start the [season] with an exciting battle,” she said of the fantasy drama, which is gearing up to begin production on Season 3.
As previously reported, the second season of House of the Dragon was shortened from ten to eight episodes for various reasons, including preparation for the strike. Some of the plot originally intended for season two, including the highly anticipated Battle of the Gullet between the Blacks and Greens, was moved to season three.
“You know what, it was worth the wait,” Orsi said about the upcoming battle scene. “I was just on set and saw all the elements and what was behind it. I’m so glad we waited because it’s going to be better than ever, and I don’t think we had the time at that point to do what it is that we’ve achieved now this season.
“It’s just so massive, we needed the time to build it,” Orsi continued. “One of the lead producers on it [Kevin de la Noy] worked on Titanic, so all that he brought in terms of acumen of what happened on the Titanic and how that entire experience is built, he brings that expertise to it.”
Addressing the challenge of “having to balance storytelling and resources you have available to tell that story,” HoD showrunner Ryan Condal in August spoke about the “tremendous number of resources, construction, armor, costumes and visual affects needed to give the Gullet, which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire and Blood, the time and the space it deserved,” adding, “We are building to that event; it will be the biggest thing to date we have pulled off.”
Although Game of Thrones author and House of the Dragon co-creator George R. R. Martin had somewhat mixed reactions to the prequel's second season, he was full of praise for the upcoming second Game of Thrones prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is based on his Dunk and Egg fantasy trilogy. The six-episode first season is based on the first book, The Hedge Knight.
“I’ve seen all six episodes now (the last two in rough cuts, admittedly), and I loved them,” Martin wrote on his blog last month. “Dunk and Egg have always been favorites of mine, and the actors we found to portray them are just incredible.”
Orsi was not aware of Martin's public comments, but she was aware of his reaction to the fewer episodes for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is set approximately 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
“He loves it,” Orsi said of the feedback they've received internally from the show's creator.
She also shares Martin’s praise for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ two stars. Additionally, she revealed that HBO executives are so bullish on the smaller-scale, more cost-efficient production with less VFX work and a shorter turnaround time that renewal is looking good, and they are considering filming Seasons 2 and 3 back-to-back. (Orsi revealed to Deadline in a 2023 interview that the idea for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was to be “arcing out a three-season series, which maps out the three novellas that George wrote.”)
“You’re going to be so impressed by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell as Dunk and Egg, the two leads, the sort of brotherhood, the paternal nature between Dunk and this young man,” she said. “So much so that we’re already planning on how do we build this for the three seasons in total. We’re not picking it up officially, but it’s looking very good. We’re looking at it as a holistic piece, Seasons 2 and 3, because there’s three novellas.”
She left the door open for more, as Martin has indicated he may write more Dunk and Egg stories.
Egg's role spans less than a year, so you have to roll into it pretty quickly from season to season because this little kid is going to grow up too fast if we wait too long," she added. "So we're thinking about that in terms of shooting."
While A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is what Orsi calls an "intimate" production, that will be the exception and not the norm as the Game of Thrones universe grows.
“We have other spinoffs that we’re working on right now, one of which — which I won’t get into — is very promising, and it is still the Targaryen line,” Orsi said. “There’s a number of other spinoffs, we can’t really guarantee what’s going to go forward, but we are very big budget on the other ones. I would say this is the most intimate one.”
