The team at HBO Max… FKA Max… FKA HBO Max may have found time to flip-flop the streamer’s name yet again, but it couldn’t find any room in the schedule for A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms until next year. The Game Of Thrones prequel was supposed to enter the fray sometime in 2025, although HBO had not announced an official date. Today, however, content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys shared a short teaser for the show at the company’s upfront presentation, attended by The A.V. Club, which ended with a card specifying that the series would now premiere in 2026. Still no specific date, but Bloys did specify that it will arrive sometime in the winter (consistent with the franchise’s erstwhile catchphrase).
Adapted from George R.R. Martin’s novella The Hedge Knight (with Martin’s increasingly rare blessing), A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms is set smack in the middle of the events of House Of The Dragon and Game Of Thrones and follows the adventures of a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his loyal squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). A full synopsis of the series reads as follows: “A century before the events of ‘Game of Thrones,’ two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.” Other stars include Finn Bennett (Aerion Targaryen), Bertie Carvel (Baelor Targaryen), and Sam Spruell (Maekar Targaryen).
Speaking of the Targaryens, HBO also hasn’t set a premiere date for season three of House Of The Dragon, but the next installment is currently in production. “This is certainly our biggest season to date, both in terms of ambition and just the practical size, the amount of sets,” showrunner Ryan Condal told Entertainment Weekly in March. “We’re cresting that narrative parabola here and starting to come down into, if not the endgame, the midpoint and getting into the late Act 2 and moving onto the start of Act 3. Anybody that’s read that book knows that the narrative gets bigger and grimmer as it goes along, and the show has to match that ambition as best it possibly can.”
