This just in: HBO is preparing to confirm House of the Dragon Season 3.
HBO gave Season 2 of House the Dragon the green light soon after the show's record-setting premiere last August.
Since then, cast members, including Matt Smith, have let it slip that House of the Dragon Season 3 is all but confirmed already. But, an official proclamation has eluded us so far.
While HBO hasn't announced anything yet, a report by Deadline says that HBO is one step closer to giving the third season a green light. Unfortunately, it comes with a caveat.
The same report claims that HBO will only release eight episodes as part of Season 3 following script rewrites. It speculates that is related to "Warner Bros. Discovery leadership's focus on cost-cutting." However, an HBO spokesperson refutes that notion, stressing that the lower episode count for Season 3 is "story-driven."
Until we get an official confirmation, we won't know which is which.
A shorter season isn't good news for House of the Dragon and is a far cry from the vision of George R.R. Martin. The Song of Ice and Fire author previously mentioned that he wants to see House of the Dragon adapted across four 10-episode seasons.
Furthermore, we don't think Game of Thrones fans will take this news lightly. Most fear "shortened" seasons as if it's the Night King itself because of what happened to the latter seasons of Game of Thrones.
After six 10-episode seasons, HBO cut the number of episodes in Season 7 and Season 8 to seven and six episodes, respectively, much to the chagrin of the cast, fans, and George R.R. Martin.
The good news is that George R.R. Martin is far more involved in House of the Dragon than he was with Game of Thrones. We can only hope his authority hasn't been usurped yet. Otherwise, fans have a good reason to worry.
House of the Dragon isn't set to premiere until at least the summer of next year and Season 3 won't likely come until 2026. We'll have to wait for a while to find out if HBO is making a grave mistake by cutting down the number of episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 or if it's a stroke of creative genius.
