House of the Dragon Season 2 Will Be Shorter, But That's a Good Thing, Somehow

Although the WGA-SAG-AFTRA strike shows no signs of stopping, HBO, now rebranded as Max, doesn't intend to put its flagship show, House of the Dragon, on hold.

According to the network's officials, season 2 will premiere sometime in 2024.

That is partially possible because the script was reportedly completed before the Writers' Guild of America went on strike in May. More importantly, however, HotD continues filming since it features a primarily British cast that isn't bound by the demands of the Actors' Guild of America to halt all projects. Regardless, season 2 of House of the Dragon will undergo some changes – it will be condensed to eight episodes, a shift that is deemed beneficial for the show.

Claire Kilner, who directed three episodes of HotD's first season, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, shedding light on this decision. According to her, showrunner Ryan Condal chose to reduce the number of episodes in the upcoming season to make the narrative tighter and more engaging while also adding vibrancy to the pacing of events.

'There are eight wonderful episodes with so much happening in every episode, and we have trouble, at times, bringing them down to one hour. Ryan's decision was to give it a good opening and a good ending, and they're jam-packed with emotional and visually exciting events,' Claire Kilner shared with the outlet.

Interestingly, House of the Dragon's predecessor, Game of Thrones, took a similar approach. While the first six seasons consisted of the standard ten episodes, the action-packed seventh and eighth seasons were shortened to seven and six episodes, respectively, considerably stepping up the story's pacing.

It would appear that is exactly what Condal is intending to achieve while making sure all the characters are properly fleshed out.

'We will get to the spectacle,' the showrunner told The Sunday Times. 'But you have to understand these people's complexities before they're thrown into war. Series two will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in.'

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see what comes out of this decision. As of now, the premiere date of House of the Dragon's second season has yet to be announced.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, The Sunday Times.