‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Sets Release Window

Finally, we have a date to return to Westeros as HBO has just announced that the second season of its hit series House of the Dragon will premiere on the network in the “early summer” of 2024. Casey Bloys, the network chief, made the announcement during a press event on Thursday. During the media presentation, an exclusive screening of the second season’s first trailer was shown to members of the media, with restrictions on reporting any specific details from the footage.

Derived from George R.R. Martin‘s book Fire and Blood within the Game of Thrones universe, House of the Dragon explores the Targaryen dynasty on the fictional continent of Westeros. The series unfolds almost two centuries before the events in “Game of Thrones” and roughly a century after the Targaryens’ consolidation of the Seven Kingdoms, before expanding on the fall of the empire built by the dragon-riding clan.

The swift progress of the series to air is a surprise, but only to the unaware—the series continued production through both Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Filming for the second season of HOTD commenced at Warner Bros.’ Leavesden Studios on April 11. This production remained unaffected by the WGA strike, which occurred from May 2 to September 27, and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, which started on July 14. This was due to the fact that the scripts had been finalised before the filming process began, ensuring that writers did not work on HOTD during the strike period. Showrunner Ryan Condal continued to be part of the set in a purely producing capacity. Additionally, the actors were under contract with the UK guild Equity, rather than SAG-AFTRA, for the duration of the production.

The initial season of HOTD, consisting of 10 episodes, was broadcast from August 21 to October 23, 2022. Remarkably, just one week after its series debut, which garnered record-breaking ratings for HBO, the show was promptly renewed for a second season following both massive audience figures, and critical acclaim.

Who is In ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2?

In the second season of the Thrones prequel, the cast features returning stars including Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans. Additionally, returning from the first season are Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham. Joining the ensemble for Season 2, we have newly-announced actors including Gayle Rankin in the role of Alys Rivers, Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong, Freddie Fox portraying Ser Gwayne Hightower, and Abubakar Salim taking on the character of Alyn of Hull.

Season 1 of House of the Dragon is streaming now on HBO. While you wait, find out more about what we know about Season 2.

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