Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight ordered to HBO series

[BlueStuff]

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/ga...-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-hbo-1235578466/

The “Game of Thrones” prequel based on George R.R. Martin’s “Dunk and Egg” books is officially moving forward at HBO.

The announcement was made during Warner Bros. Discovery presentation to press and investors on April 12, in which it was announced that the combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service will be known simply as Max. It also comes a little over two years after Variety exclusively reported that the series was in development.

The show is based on the series of fantasy novellas by Martin, which follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg) 90 years prior to the events of “A Song of Ice and Fire.”

The series is currently titled “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight.” The official logline states, “A century before the events of ‘Game of Thrones,’ two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”

GRRM will serve as executive producer as well as one of the writers. Eh, I think I'd rather have The Winds of Winter to be quite honest.

 

[Commander Troi]

I *love* Duncan and Egg!

 

[Captaindemotion]

I enjoyed the books but I wonder if they’ll change the tone and feel from their relatively standalone low-key stories to something more “epic” and thronesy, with perhaps more of an arc-based narrative. Or maybe they feel that audiences are ready for something like Westeros’ version of The Mandalorian

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I keep meaning to read those novellas but haven't got to them yet.

That said, I really hope they change that title. Fuck, that's clunky and unnecessary as fuck. And I thought X-Men Origins: Whichever Film was bad.

 

[Booji]

I'm more interested in this series than the rest of House of the Dragon. The short stories were a lot of fun. I really hope they don't change the tone.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Looking forward to it, I must say… Even if it gives GRRM yet another excuse to not finish the main books.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Skywalker]

I love these stories and Dunk and Egg, but I figured they would have worked better as a series of made-for-TV movies. Maybe they plan to add more emphasis to some of the behind-the-scenes politics going on during this era.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I enjoyed the books but I wonder if they’ll change the tone and feel from their relatively standalone low-key stories to something more “epic” and thronesy, with perhaps more of an arc-based narrative. Or maybe they feel that audiences are ready for something like Westeros’ version of The Mandalorian

Sadly, that's what it will be compared to, even though Dunk and Egg (the first "Hedge Knight" novella published in 1998) predates Mando by over 20 years. Even more sad, almost nobody will know that the manga Lone Wolf and Cub predates all of that, going back to 1970.

 

[BlueStuff]

Details from GRRM, not that there's much at this point:

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2023/04/14/a-knight-and-a-squire/

The working title will be A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT. Whether that will be the final title, I can’t say for sure… beyond saying that no, it won’t be called TALES OF DUNK & EGG or THE ADVENTURES OF DUNK & EGG or DUNK & EGG or anything along those lines. I love Dunk and I love Egg, and I know that fans refer to my novellas as “the Dunk & Egg stories,” sure, but there are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too. If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no. We want “knight” in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.

Aside from the title, what else can I tell you?

Not a lot.

HBO has given us a greenlight to film for a full season (not just a pilot), most likely of six episodes… though that is not set in stone, and won’t be until considerably later in the process. To date I have written and published three novellas about Dunk & Egg — “The Hedge Knight,” “The Sworn Sword,” and “The Mystery Knight,” each of them initially published independently in various anthologies before being collected together in A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

Our premiere season will be an adaptation of the first of the three published novellas, “The Hedge Knight,” the tale of how Dunk & Egg first met during a tournament at Ashford Meadow. The pilot script is already written, and I think it’s terrific. It was written by Ira Parker, who is no stranger to Westeros. He was part of Ryan Condal’s writing staff for the first season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and wrote the fourth episode of Hot D’s first season, “King of the Narrow Sea.” That’s the one where Prince Daemon returns to King’s Landing after conquering the Stepstones, and takes Princess Rhaenyra down into the stews of Flea Bottom. Ryan Condal is on board as well, as an Executive Producer. So am I.

There is no date set yet for the series premiere, or even for the show to begin shooting… but the writing is well underway. Ira has assembled a small but very talented team, and they are at it already, building on the foundations laid down last year in previous creative summits… and of course on the original novella. The Dunk & Egg novellas are fully-fleshed narratives more like the novels of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE than the imaginary history of FIRE & BLOOD; the stories are right there on the page, and our goal is to produce faithful adaptations of those tales for the screen.

If THE HEDGE KNIGHT turns out as well as we hope it will, our hope would be to go on and adapt THE SWORN SWORD and THE MYSTERY KNIGHT as well. That will take a few years. Then comes the hard part. Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s “The Village Hero” and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword,” and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, and then do either A DREAM OF SPRING or volume two of FIRE & BLOOD, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time… and that will keep me ahead of Ira and his merry crew… for a few more years.

Well, I will worry about that tomorrow. Today, we’re celebrating. Dunk & Egg are coming.

One more thing before I close…

Way back in the summer of 2016, when HBO first started thinking about GAME OF THRONES spinoffs, I pitched them two ideas: the Dance of the Dragons, which in due time became HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… and Dunk & Egg. That was seven years ago. (I can hardly believe it myself). The lesson there is that development takes time. I see all these stories on the net about other spinoffs being killed or abandoned… no idea where they get this stuff… and it just makes me shake my head. The Nymeria show is still in development. So is the Sea Snake show. Just had a great week on that one, working with writers. And there are others, both live action and animated. How many will get the greenlight like Dunk & Egg? Impossible to say. How long will it take? It depends. No one knows for sure. When I was in grade school, there was a cop show that ended every week with, “There are eight million stories in The Naked City. This has been one of them.” And that was only New York City. Westeros and Essos are a lot bigger, with even more stories. We just need time to tell them.

Re: that part specifically where he said that he needs to finish TWOW, ADOS/F&B2, and a new batch of D&E stories ALL BEFORE this show catches up with him (like GOT obviously did)... where does he get this optimism?

 

[Dee1891]

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/ga...-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-hbo-1235578466/



GRRM will serve as executive producer as well as one of the writers. Eh, I think I'd rather have The Winds of Winter to be quite honest.

After the series finale of "Game of Thrones", I don't see "The Winds of Winter" being adapted.

 

[Starbreaker]

There's nothing to adapt.

 

[Takeru]

DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD

Cagney & Lacey, Starsky & Hutch, Lois & Clark, Franklin & Bash, Simon & Simon, Hardcastle & McCormick

It's fine if they don't want to call it Dunk & Egg but his reasoning makes no sense, Name & Name is a very common way to name a show regardless of genre.

 

[Commander Troi]

I think calling it either The Hedge Knight or A Knight of Seven Kingdoms would be good. Not both though.

 

[oktay]

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The budget for 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' was less than $10M per episod

"The battle sequences that the directors achieved match those across 'Game of Thrones' and are a fraction of the price"

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Cagney & Lacey, Starsky & Hutch, Lois & Clark, Franklin & Bash, Simon & Simon, Hardcastle & McCormick

It's fine if they don't want to call it Dunk & Egg but his reasoning makes no sense, Name & Name is a very common way to name a show regardless of genre.

Personally, I get his reasoning but "Dunk & Egg" would intrigue me much more than "The Hedge Knight" as far as titles go.

 

[Starbreaker]

Dunk & Egg sounds really dumb for something they're trying to make seem prestige but also have mass appeal.

 

[Owain Taggart]

^ Yeah, agreed. I think Knight of the Seven Kingdoms carries more prestige and could be abbreviated as K7.