House of the Dragon season 2 will release in 2024. Speaking to Vulture, HBO and HBO Max Content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys claimed that fans of the Game of Thrones prequel series would have to wait a bit longer for the next chapter, as it definitely won’t arrive next year. House of the Dragon was renewed for its second season in August, a week into the show’s debut on the platform. All House of the Dragon episodes are available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar in India, and HBO Max wherever available.
“We’re just starting to put the plan together, and just like last time, there are so many unknowns. It’s not to be coy or secretive, but you don’t want to say it’s going to be ready on this date, and then you have to move it,” Bloys told Vulture, implying that a release date shift is still possible. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the first season took 10 months to film, with post-production work still in play when episode 1 premiered on August 22.
Co-creator and showrunner Ryan J. Condal is heading House of the Dragon season 2 with newcomer Alan Taylor, who has directorial credits on some early Game of Thrones episodes. Meanwhile, season 1 co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik has stepped down from the series, and going forward, will be credited as executive producer.
What should we expect from House of the Dragon season 2? In an interview, author and co-creator George R.R. Martin confirmed that Winterfell and House of Stark will be present in the second season. “[Season 2] is also a challenge, because everything gets bigger and more characters come into play, and we switch to more locations,” he explains, teasing the Riverlands and Harrenhal in time. The Game of Thrones author also seemed to have a different stance on the starting point for House of the Dragon, by introducing the Targaryen tale 40 years prior to what we’ve seen now — though he admits to being the only one to like the idea.
“I would’ve begun it like 40 years earlier, with an episode I would’ve called ‘The Heir and the Spare,’” Martin said. “Jaehaerys’ two sons, Aemon and Baelon, are alive, and we see the friendship but also the rivalry between the two sides of the great house. Then Aemon dies accidentally when a Myrish crossbowman shoots him by accident on Tarth, then Jaehaerys has to decide who becomes the new heir. Is it the daughter of the son who’s just died, or the second son who has children of his own and is a man where she’s a teenager?”
Earlier this month, in his personal blog, Martin expressed that it would take four full seasons to depict the Targaryen saga, each lasting 10 episodes. He would have preferred it to run for 13 episodes each, as a way to fully explore the characters, without needing a time jump, but understands the shortening. “If House of the Dragon had 13 episodes per season, maybe we could have shown all the things we had to ‘time jump’ over… though that would have risked having some viewers complain that the show was too ‘slow,’ that ‘nothing happened,’” he said.
While House of the Dragon might be the first spin-off, it’s not expected to be the last. In the Vulture interview, Bloys stated that the other spin-offs are “unlikely” to debut before House of the Dragon season 2, as they are hoping to find a story Martin is “happy with.”
A number of spin-offs are said to be in the works, including a Jon Snow series that would serve as a sequel to the eight-season long-running show, another with the working title 10,000 Ships that would tell the story of Dorne’s Princess Nymeria, a third called 9 Voyages that would follow Corlys “Sea Snake” Velaryon and essentially become a spin-off of House of the Dragon itself, a fourth in Flea Bottom set in the eponymous slum district of King’s Landing, and a fifth called Dunk & Egg that would chart the adventures of “Dunk” (Ser Duncan the Tall, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard) and “Egg” (Aegon V Targaryen, future king of Westeros).
All House of the Dragon season 1 episodes are available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar in India, and HBO Max wherever available.
