After the news broke earlier this month that HBO was developing a four potential spinoffs of Game of Thrones, dedicated fans of George R.R. Martin’s work raced to figure out which aspects of Westeros we might explore: Could we get a prequel focusing on Robert’s Rebellion? A picaresque adventure based on his stories about the knight and squire Dunk and Egg? A Hot Pie cooking show? As it turns out, the answers to that are no, no, and definitely no. Martin shared an update on the spinoffs on his LiveJournal last night, revealing that HBO now has five — not four — ideas in the works, and clarifying that the none of these ideas will have characters continue from the main GOT series (sorry, Hot Pie). Nor does Martin intend to let HBO take on his Dunk and Egg novellas, since he has “at least seven or eight or ten more I want to write,” and doesn’t want a show to get ahead of the books again. And finally, the biggest letdown: There won’t be a show about Robert’s Rebellion, the conflict that preceded the main action of the series, since “by the time I finish writing A Song of Ice and Fire, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert’s Rebellion.” Now, that eliminates all the most likely guesses, but Martin does leave us with a few tantalizing hints: “Every one of the concepts under discussion is a prequel, rather than a sequel,” and “some may not even be set on Westeros.” A Billions-style Braavos banking series is all but confirmed!
