Game of Thrones prequel canceled by HBO

It was massively hyped, but the Game of Thrones prequel series is not going to happen.

HBO has canceled plans for a prequel from showrunner Jane Goldman that starred Naomi Watts and took place thousands of years before the original series. The network shot a full pilot episode in Northern Ireland earlier this year and has elected not to pick up the series. This news was first heard weeks ago but HBO did not confirm the news.

A second Game of Thrones prequel project focusing on the Targaryen Civil War, however, is still in the works. The project hasn’t officially received a pilot order, but with this news, an order seems more likely.

The cancelation of the Game of Thrones prequel is a dramatic twist in HBO’s succession plan for its most popular and most-Emmy-awarded series ever. The project took place during Westeros’ Age of Heroes on the precipice of The Long Night war with the White Walkers. 

This was the official logline: “The series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”

“I think [the prequel] really encapsulates the reason why we love Game of Thrones in the first place, which is about the beauty of the words and the dynamics of power and all of that,” Ackie recently said when asked about the pilot. “But it’s with a completely different setting. Completely different political issues. And it’s really poignant to what we are dealing with today. But it holds on to the very thing that I think we love about Game of Thrones at the same time, which is really good [dialogue] and very good dynamics in terms of characters, in relation to each other. I wish I could say more about it. I’m so excited.”

The events in the new pilot will eventually lead up to The Dance of the Dragons, a massive civil war in the Seven Kingdoms held between two rival branches of House Targaryen.