Once upon a time, there was talk of HBO’s hit Game of Thrones series concluding with a trilogy of movies instead of its ultimately ill-fated eighth season. It sounds like Warner Bros. is now revisiting the prospect of some kind of film adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s books, even if the project is still in the earliest stages of development.
According to Hollywood Reporter, the studio is making at least one Game of Thrones movie, though the project doesn’t yet have a script, director, or cast associated with it. These “concepts of a plan” for a theatrical adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire might soon break free of its existing HBO prestige TV enclosure, something the company had resisted in the past.
While we don’t have any idea what such a movie would focus on, from entirely new events to existing portions of Martin’s world that haven’t yet been adapted to TV, it seems unlikely a project would be able to rival the previous success of Game of Thrones without involving that cast and characters in some way. Maybe it’s not unthinkable that we might get a complete do-over of the show’s much-maligned ending, something fans have long speculated about.
Any movie would also be coming out alongside a full suite of new Game of Thrones TV, from House of the Dragon season three and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to a host of other spin-offs and animated adaptations. Not all of Warner’s grand plans for the fantasy IP have come to fruition, however. A direct sequel with Kit Harington reprising his role as Jon Snow was infamously abandoned, seemingly over a lack of strong ideas for where to take the character after the as-of-yet unfinished conclusion of Martin’s books.
The Hollywood Reporter points out that a new era of post-merger Warner Bros. seems much more comfortable with major franchises seamlessly hopping between streaming and the big screen. The Harry Potter movies are currently being remade as a TV series, and The Batman has already spawned a very successful spin-off in The Penguin. It’s not hard to see Game of Thrones going in the opposite direction five years after the conclusion of the original show.