MOVIE NEWS – Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin wants the series to do well – even better than Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series…

House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will compete for fantasy fans’ ratings this summer. But George R.R. Martin is hoping that House of Dragons, the adaptation of his 2018 novel Fire and Blood, will outdo the competition somewhat. In a recent interview with The Independent, Martin spoke about the rivalry between the two series being released so close together.

“I hope both shows succeed.”

“Yeah, I’m competitive enough, I hope we succeed more. If they win six Emmy’s, and I hope they do, I hope we win seven. But nonetheless it’s good for fantasy, I love fantasy, I love science-fiction.”

HBO will air House of the Dragon on August 21, with Amazon’s The Rings of Power arriving shortly after on September 2. Neither series will not be binge-formatted (i.e., uploaded all at once) but will be streamed weekly. Therefore, the first seasons will overlap, so fans of the series will have something to look forward to.

“The minute the dates were announced, it’s ‘oh, the battle for supremacy. It’s Rings of Power versus House of [the] Dragon, who will win? I don’t know why they always have to do that.”

Martin knows well that this will be unfamiliar territory for Lord of the Rings fans, as there is remarkably little source material used for The Rings of Power. Since there are no novels for the writers to draw from, the series will be based on the vast backstory laid out by J.R.R. Tolkien in the appendices of the LOTR books.

The Rings of Power is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The series will be the most expensive TV series ever made after Amazon bought the rights for $250 million in 2017. There are currently five seasons of production commitments worth at least $1 billion.

Source: The Independent