‘Knight Of Seven Kingdoms’: Season 1 Info (November 2023)

HBO’s road to more Game of Thrones shows wasn’t smooth. The initial attempted prequel series, Bloodmoon, starred Naomi Watts and was set over 1000 years before the events of GoT, but the show was scrapped after filming a $30 million pilot episode. Subsequently, House of the Dragon inspired more confidence and filmed a full season before the premiere ratings quickly proved that the Targaryens could hold their own. That series is based upon George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, which began 300 years before the events of GoT.

We will probably never eventually see GRRM finish his Winds of Winter book, but there’s still some excellent news at hand. HBO has greenlit a new show with the working title of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. The show has been ordered with a full first season thus far, so let’s talk about what we know already.

Plot

This show will be closer (beginning around 100 years prior) to the events of Game of Thrones than House of the Dragon. At the time of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, the House of Targaryen still holds the Iron Throne. Yes, most of their dragons died during their civil war, but some dragons still remain, so their power continues until shortly before GoT begins.

This show will be based upon the trilogy of novels (The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight) within the A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms (let’s refer to this as ANOTSK for simplicity’s sake from here on out) series. All of these books are prequels to Martin’s five existing A Song of Ice and Fire novels. As well, ANOTSK is colloquially known as the “Dunk and Egg” series. That would refer to the courageous Ser Duncan the Tall and his much less-tall squire, Egg (real name unknown). They’re kind-of the predecessors to Tyrion Lannister and Podrick Payne (with a height reversal, among other differences).

Martin was very insistent, however, that he didn’t want “Dunk & Egg” to be the title of the show. He’s good with this being the affectionate way that readers refer to the books, but he was afraid that this would deliver the wrong vibe for TV, according to what Martin typed on his non-blog:

“[N]o, 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.”

That makes enough sense, but GRRM should probably expect viewers to eventually go with “Dunk & Egg” rather than the mouthful of ANOTSK once the show gets rolling.

Martin also addressed HBO’s other related series to come: “Nymeria show is still in development. So is the Sea Snake show.” He has even been helping develop the latter series “with writers” in 2023, which seems promising and like a good followup to HotD if the timing is right. Neither of these two shows has been greenlit yet, and Martin does not mention the reported Jon Snow standalone sequel series, so I guess Jon still knows nothing.

Cast

Someone physically imposing will need to be cast as Ser Duncan the Tall. He’s close to seven feet tall in the books, in fact, so don’t expect Tom Cruise to play this role. Of course, Tom probably wouldn’t want this role because he doesn’t really do TV and has enough going on already, but either Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hopper would be pretty ideal, physically. Hey, is Henry Cavill totally booked these days? Yes, but if that Warhammer 40,000 gig doesn’t work out, Cavill would be a fine contender.

Release Date

Given that this show has been greenlit for a full first season (and not simply a pilot) already, we should expect to hear about filming dates before too long.