House of the Dragon is off a promising start, earning the show a second season less than a week after its record-breaking premiere. There’s no doubt the heavy involvement of author George R.R. Martin in the new series’ development is having a positive effect on the show. While fans are raving about the new series, it doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten about the infamous final season of Dragon‘s predecessor, Game of Thrones.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Martin revealed that he originally pushed for Game of Thrones to run at least 10 seasons.
Game of Thrones was on track to be one of the greatest shows in TV history. It consistently broke viewership records and raked in Primetime Emmy nominations and wins season after season. Unfortunately, the award-winning series’ final season took a nosedive, to say the least. It disappointed critics and angered fans.
One of the final season’s prominent criticisms was its rushed conclusion and unraveling seven seasons worth of character development. Many attribute these issues, in part, to author George R.R. Martin’s lack of involvement in the show’s writing after the conclusion of season four.
Following House of the Dragon‘s explosive premiere, Martin sat down with The Wall Street Journal to talk about the franchise inspired by his best-selling fantasy novels.
Martin revealed he advocated for more seasons to HBO and series showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to give the storytelling a larger canvas.
“I was saying it needs to be 10 seasons at least and maybe 12, 13,” Martin told the WSJ.
In the end, Benioff and Weiss elected to end the show after eight seasons. Martin didn’t have much say in the show’s development during the later seasons.
“I had no contribution to the later seasons except, you know, inventing the world, the story and all the characters,” Martin said.
Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be the case with House of the Dragon.
“I believe I have more influence now [on House of the Dragon] than I did on the original show,” Martin said. He went on to detail the unconventional process of developing the spin-off series. According to Martin, five teams developed different concepts of the series and pitched them to him.
“It was like we were in the NFL playoffs and I’m coaching all the teams,” he said. “Emotionally, that was a little odd.”
Should House of the Dragon continue to “wow” fans and critics, we could be seeing more Game of Thrones-related projects in HBO’s future. At least, that’s what Martin hopes for. Already, fans have been delighted with the news that a spin-off series centered on fan-favorite character Jon Snow is in the works.
“How many shows will make it to air?” Martin said. “I don’t know, but I hope the answer will be several and we’ll have something akin to the Marvel or Star Wars model by the time it’s all settled.”