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A new Game of Thrones prequel is just around the corner: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, based on George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg books, will premiere next year.
While we wait, the official logline for the show is as follows: “A century before the events of ‘Game of Thrones,’ two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, 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.” Martin says, “Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.”
In a new teaser of Max shows in 2025, there’s a shot of Dunk:
Here’s everything you need to know about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight which may not be the final title for the show:
It’s based on the Dunk and Egg books.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (A Song of Ice and Fire)
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There are three novellas in the Dunk and Egg series: The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight. The three books were collected and published together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The story follows “Dunk” (the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Duncan the Tall) and “Egg” (the future king Aegon V Targaryen), and takes place around 90 years before the original Game of Thrones series.
If you’re confused where Aegon V Targaryen falls on the Targaryen family tree: He marries Betha Blackwood, and they have five children. His son, Jaehaerys II, succeeds him on the Iron Throne, and then Jaehaerys’s son, Aerys II, becomes king. Aerys II is also known as “the Mad King,” the last member of the Targaryen family to sit on the Iron Throne—he’s father to Daenerys Targaryen. So, Aegon V is Daenerys’s great-grandfather.
Dunk and Egg have been cast.
Peter Claffey will star as “Dunk,” Ser Duncan the Tall, and Dexter Sol Ansell will play “Egg,” a.k.a. Aegon V. Targaryen. Claffey is a former Irish rugby player who has appeared in Bad Sisters and Wreck; Ansell, who is 9 years old, previously appeared as young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird & Snakes.
Other key cast includes:
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Finn Bennett as Prince Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen, Egg’s older brother
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Bertie Carvel as Prince Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne and Hand of the King to Daeron II
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Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle, a Dornish puppeteer.
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Daniel Ings as Ser Lyonel Baratheon, a knight and the heir to House Baratheon
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Sam Spruell as Prince Maekar Targaryen, Baelor’s younger brother and Egg’s father
The show will premiere in 2026.
There will be six episodes in the first season. No specific premiere date has been set yet. Initially slated to premiere in 2025, the premiere has now been pushed back to the start of 2026.
“I’ve seen Dunk and Egg, the first season, and it’s great,” George R.R. Martin revealed to Collider in March 2025. “They’re not what most people would expect in a fantasy story. Those are two characters were really special to me, and they’re unusual, those characters. They’re not what most people would expect in a fantasy story.”
There are reportedly three seasons in the works.
“You’re going be so impressed by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell as Dunk and Egg, the two leads,” HBO’s Head of Drama Series and Films Francesca Orsi told Deadline. “So much so that we’re already planning on how do we build this for the three seasons in total. We’re not picking it up officially, but it’s looking very good.”
The cost was significantly lower than Game of Thrones.
“We’re doing a Game of Throne spinoff titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for under $10 million in episode, [which is peanuts] relative to what Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon cost episodically. And the battle sequences that the directors achieved match those across Game of Thrones and are a fraction of the price, so it’s a lesson for us that we need to be challenging these budgets,” Orsi revealed in March.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the second GOT prequel to be greenlit.
Martin will executive produce and write for the show, alongside Ira Parker, an executive producer on House of the Dragon season one. Due to the WGA writer’s strike, however, writing was paused. “The writer’s room on [The Hedge Knight] has closed for the duration [of the strike],” Martin wrote on his blog. “Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines.”
It has been in the works for a long time, however. “Way back in the summer of 2016, when HBO first started thinking about Game of Thrones spinoffs, I pitched them two ideas: the Dance of the Dragons, which in due time became House of the Dragon and Dunk & Egg. That was seven years ago. The lesson there is that development takes time,” Martin wrote on his blog. “I see all these stories on the net about other spinoffs being killed or abandoned… no idea where they get this stuff… and it just makes me shake my head.”
House of the Dragon, the first GOT prequel, returned with season two last summer. There are numerous other shows in the GOT universe in the works, including a prequel about Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros and a spinoff exploring what happened to Jon Snow after the events of the main series. The Snow spinoff is reportedly no longer in the works, however.
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