Bryan Cogman is a pretty accomplished Game of Thrones writer. In addition to a collection of episodes across the run of the show that included such titles as “Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things,” “Kill the Boy” and “Oathkeeper,” he also wrote last week’s vastly enjoyable “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” capturing some great moments of humanity (especially Brienne’s knighting) as the garrison of Winterfell prepares for the biggest battle in the show’s history. As such, it’s not surprising that a lot of GoT fans were looking forward to the Game of Thrones prequel that Cogman was reportedly working on for HBO. Now, though, we find out that we’ll never know exactly what the writer had intended, as HBO has passed on the series.
“My prequel show is not happening and will not happen,” Cogman said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “HBO decided to go a different way.”
Cogman’s series was one of five different ones that HBO was looking at, so the competition must have been fierce. The only series confirmed so far comes from Jane Goldman, reportedly stars Naomi Watts, and is set during the mythical “Age of Heroes,” a long-ago era in Westerosi history much more filled with magic and mysticism than the setting of Game of Thrones. It has been reported that this series will deal with “the horrifying secrets of Westeros; history to the true origin of the white walkers, to the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend.” Cogman’s series, meanwhile, would also have been a prequel of some kind—one that George R.R. Martin simply described as being “set during a very exciting period of Westerosi history.” There’s precisely zero way to know what he was talking about, of course.
Cogman, meanwhile, is saying goodbye to Game of Thrones entirely, now that his series hasn’t been picked up. After delivering “an exploration of the characters, and for me, personally, a celebration of the characters” last week in “A Knight of the Seven Kindoms,” the writer has signed an overall deal with Amazon, and is moving on to other things.
“I’m working with Amazon now and helping them out with their shows,” he said. “So it is a goodbye. I am done with Westeros.”
Let’s hope that HBO chooses their new series in the Game of Thrones universe wisely. If what they choose is more impressive than what Cogman had planned, things will get very interesting indeed.