There are only seven kingdoms, but there are countless Game of Thrones spinoff series hovering around HBO, some (maybe) still in development, some (probably) deceased, some yet to come. And the newest one is an invasion. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has brought on The Batman Part II writer Mattson Tomlin to develop a series about Aegon’s Conquest, which THR describes as “basically a direct prequel to the hit House of the Dragon, telling the story of the Targaryens’ bloody and brutal conquest of Westeros.”
If you are a Game of Thrones show, you can never be too powerful or too bloody, it seems. Aegon the Conqueror was, in the complex lore of George R.R. Martin’s universe, the first king of Westeros, who invaded (with his dragons, natch) and conquered six of the seven kingdoms. (Bless you, Dorne, you hold your independent head up high.)
Also, he had purple eyes, making him a perfect fantasy hero. Also, he married not one but both of his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys. Born on Dragonstone, Aegon I is the person who had that cool big-ass map-of-Westeros table made. It’s maybe a little less cool when you realize it was built for him to plan his invasion.
Needless to say, there is a lot of politicking involved in Aegon’s Conquest, with a whole new era’s worth of conniving lords and power-hungry graspers. It is rich material if you are trying to create another series full of realistic violence and less realistic sexposition, which it sounds like might be the case; as THR drily notes, “One source described the project as taking a ‘back to basics’ approach to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy universe (though considering the first series was sprawling and complex, it’s unclear what ‘back to basics’ means, exactly, in the Thrones context).”
As for Tomlin, he reportedly did uncredited work on The Batman before signing on for the sequel (director Matt Reeves is co-writing the film). He wrote and directed the 2023 Hulu film Mother/Android, starring Chloë Grace Moretz, and is one of the writers on the in-development comics adaptation BRZRKR. On the episodic side, he’s a writer on Netflix’s animated Terminator series.
Many Song of Ice and Fire series have been in development; only two Game of Thrones spinoffs have made it to the next stage. House of the Dragon (pictured above) has its season-two premiere later this year, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is expected to begin production this year. Aegon’s Conquest seems like a sure thing, but then so did some of the other shows that will likely never see the light of day—or the dark of “The Long Night.”
