Latest news with #Condal
Tom's Guide
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
'House of the Dragon' season 3 will go experimental with a concept episode
Westeros fans are already excited about the promise of "House of the Dragon" season 3, the next installment of the "Game of Thrones" prequel series. Alas, we still don't have a release date (we'll keep you posted the second we hear!), but news of filming kicking off in England and new actors joining the cast should be enough to hold George R. R. Martin stans over for awhile. Still, we're chomping at the bit until Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy), Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and the rest of our favorite "House of the Dragon" characters are back on screen. That's especially so now that showrunner Ryan Condal has teased a special high-concept episode to come in the new season. While speaking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the showrunner revealed that one episode of the third season will be a more "conceptual" and "character-driven" installment than "House of the Dragon" fans have seen from the HBO fantasy series so far. 'We got to have a little fun this season, and there's a conceptual episode that I'm really excited about that [Sara Hess] wrote, and that's all I'm gonna say about it," Condal shared during the podcast appearance. "It isn't in the traditional vernacular of what we have laid out. It's very character-driven, I think it's really great and I'm really excited to see it rendered.' Exactly which character's journey will be on the receiving end of this more experimental narrative style in the new episodes is so far unknown. Condal played coy when it came to naming names, as well as how that treatment will play out visually onscreen. But it will be interesting getting a more introspective and emotional look into a character's mindset, especially as the turmoil of a major war rages around them. Outside of the more focused, interior look into the personalities of "House of the Dragon," the third season is set to go bigger and better with its storylines. In a previous interview with Gold Derby, Condal said: "Season 2 is huge. Season 3 is huger, in many ways. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. "There are, by my quick count on stage, four major events from the book that we get to adapt and realize in three dimensions in this season. That's really exciting on a scope-and-scale perspective, and I think it's the thing the show does really well." Tom's Guide will keep you posted on all things related to "House of the Dragon" season 3, including that aforementioned concept episode as well as new teaser trailers, plot points, character details, casting announcements and more.
The Independent
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
House of the Dragon showrunner on George RR Martin's criticism: ‘Unwilling to acknowledge practical issues'
House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal has shared how he feels about George R R Martin's now-deleted blog posts on 'everything that's gone wrong' with the second season of the HBO series. In a post on his blog, Not a Blog late in August last year, the Game of Thrones creator wrote he had a 'pretty wretched year' and wasn't looking forward to writing 'about everything that's gone wrong with House of the Dragon '. In another post, he detailed his issues with Condal, which primarily stemmed from the latter eliminating Aegon and Helaena Targaryen's youngest son, Prince Maelor, from the story. In the series, the couple only have two children, twins Jaehaera and Jaehaerys. Martin, who also has co-creator and executive producer credits on the series, wrote: 'He is a small child, does not have a line of dialogue, does nothing of consequence but die… but where and when and how, that does matter.' The writer added that there were 'larger and more toxic' changes being made in the forthcoming third and fourth seasons. In a new interview, Condal talked about the 'disappointing' criticism, explaining that the source material, based on Martin's Fire & Blood and covers the history of the Targaryen family, was not a straightforward narrative and required a looser interpretation. 'It was disappointing,' Condal told Entertainment Weekly. 'I will simply say I've been a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire for almost 25 years now, and working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of, not only my career as a writer, but my life as a fan of science-fiction and fantasy. George himself is a monument, a literary icon in addition to a personal hero of mine, and was heavily influential on me coming up as a writer.' 'It's this incomplete history and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way,' Condal said. '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.' 'At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that's my job,' he continued. 'So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that's what I have to say about it.' After Martin published his blog posts, HBO responded saying that adapting a title came with its own challenges and a showrunner would have to work within them. 'There are few greater fans of George RR Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO,' said a spokesperson. 'Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.' Condal ended with saying there was no creative decision made flippantly, and made only after 'usually many months' of discussion. 'There's nothing we do on the show without talking it through and thinking about it very deeply for usually many months, if not years,' he said. 'I will just say that the creative decisions that we make in the show all flow through me, every single one of them, and this is the show that I want to make and believe, as a fan of Fire & Blood and a deep reader of this material, it is the adaptation that we should be making to not only serve Fire & Blood, but also a massive television audience.' Before his blog posts on House of the Dragon, Martin had taken to his blog to share his dissatisfaction at Hollywood screenwriters and their approach to developing adaptations. 'Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and 'make them their own,'' he wrote. 'No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and 'improve' on it. 'The book is the book, the film is the film,' they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own. 'They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.' However, Martin has been full of praise for the forthcoming Game of Thrones prequel series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Starring Peter Claffey as Ser Duncan 'Dunk' the Tall, the series is based on Martin's novella The Hedge Knight and is is expected to arrive in late 2025. 'Ira [Parker, showrunner] and his team wrapped the first season months ago, and moved right on to post production,' the author wrote. 'I've seen all six episodes now (the last two in rough cuts, admittedly), and I loved them. Dunk and Egg have always been favourites of mine, and the actors we found to portray them are just incredible. 'The rest of the cast are terrific as well. Wait until you guys meet the Laughing Storm. and Tanselle Too-Tall.'
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘House of the Dragon' Showrunner Confronts George R.R. Martin Tension, Says He Became ‘Unwilling to Acknowledge' Show's Limits
'House of the Dragon' showrunner Ryan Condal addressed his creative tension with 'Game of Thrones' author and creator George R.R. Martin in a recent interview, saying it began behind-the-scenes of the HBO fantasy series because Martin became 'unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand.' Condal's comments were made in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Monday to coincide with the start of production on 'House of the Dragon' Season 3. It has been months since Martin published last September a contentious, quickly-deleted blog post criticizing Condal and the show's leadership over their past and planned changes to his source material, and even longer since 'House of the Dragon' Season 2 went off the air in early August. Condal said Monday that he did not read Martin's post but remarked that it was 'disappointing' to learn about it from others. 'I will simply say I've been a fan of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' for almost 25 years now, and working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of, not only my career as a writer, but my life as a fan of science-fiction and fantasy,' Condal began. 'George himself is a monument, a literary icon in addition to a personal hero of mine, and was heavily influential on me coming up as a writer.' The 'House of the Dragon' showrunner then offered some insight into how his and Martin's initially 'fruitful' creative collaboration on the 'Game of Thrones' prequel turned sour. '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,' Condal revealed. '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. '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 continued. 'At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast and for HBO, because that's my job.' Condal added that he hopes he and Martin can one day 'rediscover' their previous collaborative 'harmony,' but declined to talk about the issue further. The showrunner did, however, address one of Martin's criticisms of 'House of the Dragon' Season 2, namely the absence of Maelor Targaryen, the canonical third son of Queen Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban). Martin insisted last year that Maelor's absence would greatly lessen the logic and emotional impact of future events of the show, and he pointed to it as one of many changes the 'House of the Dragon' creative team had erroneously made in order to limit the show's cast size, budget and narrative scope. Regarding Maelor's absence from the series, Condal told EW, 'There's nothing we do on the show without talking it through and thinking about it very deeply for usually many months, if not years. I will just say that the creative decisions that we make in the show all flow through me, every single one of them, and this is the show that I want to make and believe, as a fan of 'Fire & Blood' and a deep reader of this material, it is the adaptation that we should be making to not only serve 'Fire & Blood,' but also a massive television audience.' In the same interview, Condal spoke candidly about the difficulties of both managing the show's inevitable budgetary constraints and adapting 'Fire & Blood,' the fictional 2018 historical text that serves as the guiding source material for 'House of the Dragon.' 'It's this incomplete history and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way,' Condal said of the Martin-penned novel. 'There's been no television show in history that ever said, 'We have too much money and too much time to make this,'' he additionally noted about the HBO drama's budget. 'You're always making decisions as you go along as to, how are we going to use the resources we have right now to tell the best story we can possibly tell?' Martin famously wanted 'Game of Thrones,' HBO's immensely successful predecessor to 'Dragon,' to run for several seasons longer than it ultimately did, an idea that those involved with 'Thrones' have deemed unfeasible. Based on how the final season of 'Thrones' was received, though, many fans would likely take Martin's side on that debate. Notably, the 'House of the Dragon' Season 2 finale was not received well, either. Whether or not Condal and his team will be able to put the series back on a track that fans are happy with remains to be seen. Either way, the battle taking place behind-the-scenes of 'Dragon' seems to be similar to the one that unfolded throughout the final seasons of 'Thrones' — namely, how many changes can be made and how much Martin's signature, expansive style of storytelling can be sized down before it becomes dramatically unsuccessful. The post 'House of the Dragon' Showrunner Confronts George R.R. Martin Tension, Says He Became 'Unwilling to Acknowledge' Show's Limits appeared first on TheWrap.
