Despite Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin once plainly stating that HBO was not going to make a TV show out of his Dunk and Egg novellas, those characters will be central in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, a Thrones prequel series that HBO greenlit Wednesday during Warner Bros. Discovery’s unveiling of its Max streaming service.

The series will be written and executive-produced by Martin and Ira Parker. Ryan Condal, who currently serves as House of the Dragon‘s showrunner, and Vince Gerardis also will be EPs.

“A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros,” the official logline reads. “A young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall” (aka Dunk) “and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”

In 2021, HBO and HBO Max chief content officer Casey Bloys stressed that the Game of Thrones spinoff concepts that would move forward would be the ones that are the strongest based on several measures.

“Obviously, we know George has this incredible world with all of this really rich and complicated history and all of these characters,” he told TVLine at the time. “So we’ve been trying to be thoughtful about what are the stories that are worth telling. What would be exciting? What would fans love?” he said. “Dunk and Egg is one of those, but not the only one.”

Bloys added that HBO also would take into account what the network — and the creators with which it partners — are most excited about, story-wise. Ideally, he said, “We’ll let the creative dictate where we end up.”

HBO is developing another Game of Thrones spinoff series.

The company is actively heating up its long-in-discussion Aegon’s Conquest idea.

HBO is partnering with Mattson Tomlin, an in-demand scribe who did uncredited work on Matt Reeve’s The Batman and is co-writing its upcoming sequel The Batman Part II. He also co-wrote the Keanu Reeves action comic adaptatation BRZRKR and the upcoming video game adaptation Mega Man.

Aegon’s Conquest is basically a direct prequel to the hit House of the Dragon, telling the story of the Targaryen’s bloody and brutal conquest of Westeros. The story follows the invader Aegon Targaryen, who conquered the continent of Westeros with his sister wives, Rhaenys and Visenya, and their dragons. Aegon successfully unified six of the Seven Kingdoms in just two years, with only Dorne able to successfully resist.

One source described the project as taking a “back to basics” approach to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy universe (though considering the first series was sprawling and complex, it’s unclear what “back to basics” means, exactly, in the Thrones context). Variety previously reported Aegon’s Conquest as an idea in discussion early last year.

Since Thrones concluded in 2019, there have been many prequels (and one sequel idea) put into development and some are considered no longer active — though HBO prefers not to say any option is completely off the table as there’s always the chance a once-promising idea could be redeveloped under a different writer.

The efforts have spawned two greenlit shows: House of the Dragon, which launches its second season this summer; and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, which starts production this year and is based on Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas.

HBO had no comment.

Tomlin, repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Goodman Genow, has shown he can flex in various genres, wrote the Jamie Foxx Netflix super power crime thriller Project Power and worked as a consultant on the Oscar-nominated animated movie The Sea Beast.