A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" redirects here. For other uses, see: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (disambiguation)

"The Hedge Knight" redirects here. For the novella, see: The Hedge Knight (novella)

A Knight of theSeven Kingdoms:The Hedge Knight
Release information
Format	Live-action
Seasons	1
Episodes	6 (tentative)
Premiere	Season 1, Episode 1
Network(s)	HBO Max
Premiere date	Late 2025
Production information
Starring	Peter Claffey Dexter Sol Ansell
Creator(s)	Ira Parker
Executive producers	Ira Parker Aziza Barnes Ryan Condal Vince Gerardis George R.R. Martin Hiram Martinez Annie Julie Wyman Owen Harris Sarah Bradshaw
Writers	Ira Parker Aziza Barnes George R.R. Martin Hiram Martinez Annie Julie Wyman
Directors	Harry Bradbeer
In production	June 3, 2024
Based on	Dunk & Egg novellas by George R.R. Martin
Chronological information
Year	209 AC

"A century before the events of Game of Thrones, there was Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg."

―Logline

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, or simply The Hedge Knight, are the working titles of the upcoming third live-action television series of the World of Westeros. It will be the third installment of the franchise overall. It was ordered by HBO in April 2023 and will premiere in late 2025.

George R.R. Martin, Ira Parker, Ryan Condal, and Vince Gerardis will serve as executive producers.

It is set 89 years before the beginning of Game of Thrones, and 77 years after the first season finale of House of the Dragon.

Premise

A century before the events of Game of Thrones, there was Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg. Executive produced by George R. R. Martin, Ira Parker, Ryan Condal and Vince Gerardis, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight has received a straight to series order.

Seasons

Season	Episodes	Premiere date	Finale date
1	6 (tentative)	Late 2025	Late 2025

Cast

Main page: Starring cast (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight)

Starring

• Peter Claffey as Duncan the Tall, a young hedge knight.
• Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg, Duncan's squire.

Crew

Producers

• Ira Parker: creator, executive producer, showrunner
• Aziza Barnes: executive producer
• Ryan Condal: executive producer
• Vince Gerardis: executive producer
• George R.R. Martin: executive producer
• Hiram Martinez: executive producer
• Annie Julie Wyman: executive producer
• Owen Harris: executive producer
• Sarah Bradshaw: executive producer, line producer
• Ti Mikkel: producer
• Lisa Byrne: line producer

Writers

• Ira Parker: episode 1
• Aziza Barnes
• George R.R. Martin
• Hiram Martinez
• Annie Julia Wyman

Directors

• Harry Bradbeer

Staff

• Lucy Bevan: casting director
• Adam Pescott: storyboard artist

Production

Early development

Dunk and Egg riding together, as depicted in Histories & Lore.

On February 10, 2013, George R.R. Martin confirmed that he had been in discussion with HBO over a possible adaptation of the Dunk & Egg novellas, though in what format (TV movies, theatrical movie, or a spin-off TV series) was not made clear.

In 2016, Martin pitched the series to HBO, with the working title Dunk and Egg. The pitch was initially rejected in favor of a second idea, The Dance of the Dragons, which would eventually become House of the Dragon.

Ryan Condal, showrunner on House of the Dragon, revealed in a 2020 interview that, in some sense, he was both the first and last screenwriter of the first cycle of pitches for prequel projects: he approached George R.R. Martin in early 2016 about doing a Dunk & Egg prequel, but Martin himself rejected the idea out of hand at the time because he wanted to finish that series first. Thus Condal's suggestion was never a formal "pitch" and wasn't one of the other ideas HBO rejected early on. After Condal's early suggestion to do Dunk & Egg was rejected in 2016, he ultimately came back at the end of the first pitch cycle in 2019 to helm House of the Dragon.

Martin himself, however, in a subsequent podcast interview with Ryan Condal in September 2021, admitted that Dunk & Egg was actually one of the original two prequel pitches that Martin himself had submitted to HBO - the other being the Dance of the Dragons (House of the Dragon). Martin said it was actually HBO that rejected Dunk & Egg at the time, then came up with four other pitches in addition to the Dance of the Dragons - then soon afterward Condal independently proposed to Martin that he could pitch a Dunk & Egg series, unaware that HBO had already told Martin they didn't want to do it. This does confirm that Martin himself actually changed his mind about Dunk & Egg, and considered it one of his top two picks for a prequel series, alongside the Dance of the Dragons.

On January 21, 2021, Variety first reported rumors that a new attempt was being made to pitch a Dunk & Egg prequel series. Months later on November 30, 2021, Deadline reported that an adaptation was in development, and that the pitch was advanced enough that screenwriter Steve Conrad was attached as showrunner.

On March 9, 2022, George R.R. Martin himself gave an update in his blog about potential prequel projects, confirming that Steve Conrad was attached to a potential Dunk & Egg series, and that it has passed from the "pitch" phase to the "pilot script" phase, though it is unknown if HBO will ultimately greenlight filming on a pilot episode. Martin said that they haven't decided on a working title for the series yet, as he's been calling it A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms but there are also arguments to call it The Hedge Knight. As Martin said:

"The third of the live action shows is the Dunk & Egg series, helmed by Steve Conrad. My team and I have had some great sessions with Steve and his team, and we really hit it off. He's determined to do a faithful adaptation of the stories, which is exactly what I want; these characters and stories are very precious to me. The first season will be an adaptation of the first novella, 'The Hedge Knight.' Contrary to what you may have read online, the show will not be called DUNK & EGG, which could be mistaken for a sitcom by viewers unfamiliar with the stories. We're leaning toward A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS for the series title, though THE HEDGE KNIGHT has its partisans as well."

In a more recent blogpost on June 23, 2022, Martin used the title The Hedge Knight more prominently, suggesting that the team is now leaning more towards that title.

In October 2022, a number of titles were removed from Startling Inc.'s development list, leading some to speculate that these shows had been quietly rejected. As of November 2022, Dunk & Egg is the only World of Westeros project that remains on the list, excluding the stage play The Iron Throne which is separate from HBO's World of Westeros franchise.

Greenlight

During Warner Bros. Discovery's upfront presentation on April 12, 2023, it was announced that the project has been greenlit to full series. As it turned out, rather than picking one of the two alternate names being considered, the final version simply combined them both to call it: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. It is possible that each season will have a different sub-heading, i.e. that a second season could be called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Sworn Sword.

George R.R. Martin will be attached to the series as writer and executive producer, as will Ira Parker, who was a co-executive producer on House of the Dragon, and also served as screenwriter on the first season's fourth episode. Martin's agent Vince Gerardis and House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal are also credited as executive producers.

Seasons 2 and 3

On May 26, 2023, HBO's head of drama, Francesca Orsi, revealed that the series would run "ideally year-to-year and arcing out a three-season series, which maps out the three novellas that George wrote."

Casting

Only two weeks after the series was officially greenlit, the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike shut down further work on the series. George R.R. Martin confirmed in a blog post days later that the scripts for the remaining five out of six episodes in the first season were either not finished or had not even begun yet: "The writer’s room on A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT has closed for the duration. Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines."

The strike ultimately lasted five months, ending on September 27th. Picking up where they left off, subsequently on October 20, 2023 the casting process for the new TV series began. Veteran UK-based casting director Lucy Bevan (who has previously cast high-profile WB movies including The Batman, Barbie, Death on the Nile, and Cruella) publicly posted a casting sheet asking for two lead characters in an upcoming new HBO series. Many news sites such as Westeros.org, WinterIsComing.net, and Redanian Intelligence reported that the descriptions blatantly sound like Duncan the Tall and Aegon "Egg" Targaryen:

"BOY: Aged 9-10. Physically small, the character is wise beyond his years, confident and witty. He has a neutral English accent, and is white with blue/green eyes and pale skin. Must be under 4’6 (137cm) and at least 9 years old by March 2024 for licensing."

"SOLDIER: Aged 18-25. The soldier is very tall and physically strong. He has a humble disposition and is perceptive and thoughtful. Any ethnicity. Must be at least 6’4 (193cm)."

This seems to indicate that HBO is aiming to film around early to mid-2024. It is difficult to determine from this what the targeted release date will be: with only six small-scale episodes covering events at a single tournament, Season 1 should have a much shorter filming period than a full season for House of the Dragon. Another major factor to consider, however, is that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have caused many TV platforms including HBO to delay the release of some series that were already finished, in order to stretch out what content they currently have (i.e. True Detective: Season 4 was pushed from a Fall 2023 premiere to January 2024). It is alternatively possible that HBO might want to push the series to an earlier premiere date, to fill the gap left by other major series that physically can't finish post-strike production sooner.

On April 5, 2024, Variety reported that Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell had been cast as Dunk and Egg respectively.

Source material

The Dunk & Egg novellas originated as an ongoing series of prequel novellas written by George R.R. Martin, but in 2015 all three of the then-currently released novellas were collected together and printed as a stand-alone hardcover book, titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Dunk & Egg novellas were the first prequel era that Martin developed separate from the main A Song of Ice & Fire novel series, starting with The Hedge Knight in 1998 (published between the release of the first and second novels). This was followed by The Sworn Sword (2003) and The Mystery Knight (2010), and all three of these novellas have also received graphic novel adaptations.

The source material for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight contrasts in several ways with the source material for House of the Dragon: it is much more detailed in the earlier installments, but the series is unfinished:

• The first three Dunk & Egg novellas are the only other prequels that Martin has written out as fully realized narrative prose from the perspective of a POV character (in the style of the main A Song of Ice and Fire novels). House of the Dragon was based on Fire & Blood, written as an in-universe history book, which is more of an outline and doesn't have much specific dialogue. Nonetheless it is a finished outline, so the overarching story structure is clear to the writers of the TV adaptation.
• For Dunk & Egg, meanwhile, Martin has stated that only the first three out of a planned twelve novellas have been finished: with time skips, he intends for the later novellas to cover the entire lives of the main characters on a scale of fifty years. The fourth and fifth novellas are nearly complete, but Martin paused writing on them to focus on finishing the main novel series. Given that the TV adaptation is stated to cover one novella per season, this would only become a significant issue after season three (or possibly season five).
• However, The World of Ice & Fire, released in 2014, revealed that Martin has significant outlines already in place for the remaining novellas (to the point that the co-authors said they were uncomfortable with releasing so much of it and asked to hold back on certain information).
• Due to the planned time skips, the later installments towards the end of the planned 12 novella series would start bridging the gap to the Game of Thrones era, introducing younger versions of characters who were elderly or dead by the time of the first novel: Tywin Lannister, Olenna Tyrell, Barristan Selmy, and Daenerys's father Aerys II Targaryen. Egg is also the younger brother of Maester Aemon, who lives to be over 100 years old in service to the Night's Watch: Dunk & Egg visit him off-screen between the first and second novellas (so he might appear in a second season), and he would enter their story several more times in later installments. One character from the main novels who has already made a definitive appearance in the printed novellas is Walder Frey, appearing as a misbehaving three-year-old in the third novella. Bloodraven also appears in both series, but he technically appeared in The Mystery Knight first, as that novella was published a year before A Dance with Dragons, the novel he appears in.

External links

• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight on A Wiki of Ice and Fire
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight on HBO
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight on IMDb