Game of Thrones fans apparently don’t have much time to wait when it comes to what’s happening with the next series in the franchise.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering confirmation that one of Game of Thrones‘ sequel/prequel/series that comes after it ends already has a pilot order. The Belfast Telegraph now has a report on when that pilot should start: October.
There are a number of reasons why this all makes sense, but we’ll boil it down to two. First, Titanic Studios and the Paint Hall, specifically, have served as Game of Thrones‘ home base for several seasons. Even though David Benioff and Dan Weiss aren’t involved with the new show, it’s unsurprising that production would use a familiar location. Second, there’s simply a lot of space there. (If you’ve been keeping up with spoilers for season 8, you’ll know why.) There’s room to create huge sets.
Of course, one might wonder why it’s starting in October, when the show won’t air until at least 2020. Well, that has to do with the idea of pilots. Presumably, everyone involved in production has learned their respective lessons after the infamously bad Game of Thrones pilot, which apparently didn’t make it clear enough that Cersei and Jaime Lannister are siblings.
In other words, these things take time to craft. Besides that, if the pilot doesn’t need any retooling and gets a series order, there’s still an entire season that will need production, and as we’ve seen with the production of season 8, that can take quite some time as well. Filming has only just ended on that, and it won’t even end next year.
Next: Game of Thrones season 8 spoilers: Well, the Starks told us so
In short, this is a good sign both in terms of giving plenty of run time for this spinoff to be the best it can be … and for letting us hopefully get looks at production this fall already.