George R. R. Martin has confirmed three animated Game of Thrones series are currently in various stages of development, though none of them have been officially greenlit by HBO just yet.
On his blog, Martin expressed his love for the newly released Blue Eye Samurai animated series before he began discussing the animated Game of Thrones projects that are currently in the works.
“As it happens, HBO and I have our own animated projects, set in the world of A Song of Ice & Fire,” he wrote. “None of them have been greenlit yet, but I think we are getting close to taking the next step with a couple of them. When this last round of development started a few years back, we had four ideas for animated shows, with some great talents attached. Writers rooms and summits, outline and scripts followed in due course… but, alas, two of the original projects were subsequently shelved.”
One of the Game of Thrones animated series is about the Sea Snake
Noting he prefers to use the word “shelved” instead of “killed” given that there’s always the chance a project put on the back burner could be taken “off the shelf a few years later,” Martin also touched on another project regarding the Sea Snake (played by Steve Toussaint in HBO’s House of the Dragon).
“Work on the other two animated projects continues apace, however…and meanwhile, we have moved Nine Voyages, our series about the legendary voyages of the Sea Snake, over from live-action to animation. A move I support fully. Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live-action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to… well, on and on and on. There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation. So we now have three animated projects underway.”
Martin concluded, “Will any of them make it to air? happen? No way to know. Nothing is certain in Hollywood. But if it does happen, with one or two or all three shows, I hope we can make them as good as gorgeous and gripping as Blue Eye Samurai. We will for damn sure try.”
