'House of the Dragon' to end with season 4
House of the Dragon will end with four seasons, showrunner Ryan Condal revealed.
HBO confirmed how long the Game of Thrones prequel will run in a press conference on Aug. 5.
Asked if the fantasy series will have five seasons, Condal answered, "No, I think it's four." He added that the timeline of the story, which is based on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, has already been mapped out.
The third season of the show will begin production in early 2025, according to Condal. However, there isn't any news yet if it will be eight episodes long like season 2.
"I haven't had discussions with HBO about it. I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from Season 2 on.
The showrunner also discussed the cliffhanger from the season 2 finale as it ended with characters preparing for the Battle of the Gullet.
"We wanted to rebalance the story in such a way that we had three great seasons of television [after season one] to round out and tell this story. When you’re trying to mount the show, which requires a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes, visual effects … we are trying to give The Gullet — which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood — trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves," Condal said, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
Martin has previously said in a blog post that he expects the story of Rhaenyra, Aegon II, and the Dance of the Dragons to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to "do justice."
Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons from 2011 to 2019 with 73 episodes.
Another prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is set to be released in 2025. The show will follow Ser Duncan the Tall and (a different) Aegon "Egg" Targaryen and their adventures based on the novella Tales of Dunk and Egg.