Courtesy of HBO
AsA Knight of the Seven Kingdomswraps up its debut season, the otherGame of Thronesprequel is back in action.
The firstHouse of the Dragonseason 3 trailer arrives Thursday with a closer look at the penultimate run. ShowrunnerRyan Condaland HBO CEO Casey Bloys signaled season 4 (premiering in 2028) will be the last, so we're now fully in the thick of all-out war.
"You are the Queen of Dragons," Matt Smith's Daemon Targaryen declares before Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy). "You have an absolute power within your grasp."
The footage shows our first glimpses of the aftermath to the season 2 finale, in which Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) promised to hand over King's Landing to Rhaenyra. Though, the Blacks are already warning their queen to be wary.
Season 3 will also adapt the Battle of the Gullet, as told inGeorge R. R. Martin's fictional chronology of the Targaryen empire,Fire and Blood. It's considered to be one of the bloodiest sea battles in Westeros history. The trailer gives us our first real look at the bloodshed to come as Rhaenyra's son, Jace (Harry Collett), rides into the fray on dragonback.
"In many ways, the Gullet has been on the minds of the production for about three years now, and trying to figure out how we were going to mount it in a way that was both producible and exciting, thrilling,"Condal previously teased the eventtoEntertainment Weekly. "The planning that has gone into this...basically all departments working in concert to really make a thing that nobody has ever done before."
The season 3 trailer continues with lots of dramatic sound bites and flashes of our core figures preparing for the impending onslaught. We also see flashes of Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), who fled King's Landing at the end of season 2 with Larys Strong (Matthew Needham). In his absence, Aegon's brother, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), is getting a little too comfy on the Iron Throne.
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Setting the stage for season 3, Condal relayed, "I will say that the war this season goes very hot, very, very quickly. I think the people that were waiting and waiting for all of the horrible, brutal, pitiless bloodshed will be getting it in copious amounts."
This first trailer drops during an interesting time for theGame of Thronesfandom.The Hollywood Reporterpublished a profile on Martin, the creator of this world, back in January, in which the author and executive producer described his "abysmal" relationship with Condal over the creative direction ofHouse of the Dragon. Fans have been talking about it online ever since, especially now as HBO kicks off the promotional push for season 3.
Martin notably published and then quickly deleted a blog post in August 2024 that was meant to be the first of six entries detailing all of his issues with the TV adaptation.THRreported Martin is now back consulting onHouse of the Dragon, but he's no longer commenting on the situation.
Courtesy of HBO
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Condal previously told EW, in part, "I will simply say, I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time. But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way. And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time."
He also expressed his hope for him and Martin to "rediscover that harmony someday." (Read his full statement.)
Regardless, the dragons are indeed back.House of the Dragonseason 3 will premiere this June on HBO.
Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
