HBO Drama Chief Can’t Imagine House of the Dragon Will be Less Than 4 Seasons: ‘Could be More’

It appears that House of the Dragon is going to last four or more seasons, according to new comments from an executive at HBO. That timeline coincides with George R.R. Martin’s own comments saying that the series will need at least four seasons to do justice to his book.

HBO’s head of drama, Francesca Orsi, recently gave an update to Deadline on just how long House of the Dragon could continue. The Game of Thrones prequel series premiered last year to big ratings, leading to a quick Season 2 renewal. The show’s second season sees executive producer, director, and co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik leaving, with co-creator and executive producer Ryan Condal becoming sole showrunner.

“It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion,” Orsi said about the length of the series. “George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see.”

While Orsi’s comments are not an official announcement that the show will continue for four or more seasons, the news is undoubtedly a big development for the future of the series. Previously, Martin has said that the show will need at least four seasons if it is to continue at its current pace. House of the Dragon’s source material, Fire & Blood, is a lengthy novel that covers roughly 150 years of history, concluding with the climactic Dance of the Dragons.

In order to cover the extensive saga of Westeros under Targaryen rule, House of the Dragon incorporates significant time jumps, a decision that Martin defends. However, the HBO series still needs to make some story decisions for its future.

“It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish,” Martin wrote in a blog last year.

Season 2 of the show, which is currently filming in the U.K. despite the ongoing writers’ strike, will only feature eight episodes, according to a Deadline report in March. Orsi claims that filming on Season 2 has not been affected by the strike thusfar.

“Ryan is following all the rules — and of course pencils down — rendering services as the non-writing producer,” Orsi said. “If there is anything that needs to be rewritten or reshot, we’ll handle that after the strike, and we’ll put the resources behind revising what we need to do and reshooting what we need to do if we’ve made any mistakes along the way.”

It is likely that Season 3 will be greenlighted soon, Orsi also said.

Carson Burton is a freelance news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @carsonsburton.