Game of Thrones spin-offs: HBO gives release date and development update

Clearing up that there will almost certainly only be one

HBO programming president Casey Bloys has cleared a coupled of things up about the planned Game of Thrones spin-off/prequels/sequels.

First up in the interview with EW, regarding the release date:

“I want to put the prequels in context. It should go without saying I love having a show with this much intense interest around it. Even the smallest bit of information is a big deal and I appreciate that. But I wanted to make sure fans know this is a really embryonic process. I haven’t even seen outlines.”

(TL;DR = Chill out, they're going to take a while)

Secondly, on misrepresentation/misinterpretation of the number of shows:

“In the press at large, everybody said, ‘there are four spinoffs’ and they assume that means each one is happening and we’re going to have a new Game of Thrones show per quarter. That’s not what’s going on,” Bloys clarified. “The idea is not to do four shows. The bar set by [David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] is so high that my hope is to get one show that lives up to it."

(TL;DR = Obviously there aren't going to be four spin-offs, HBO isn't that cynical)

People could be forgiven for thinking there will be several though, as the whole 'four idea development' thing is quite unusual, and only viable because of Game of Thrones' immense success.

"You couldn’t do this with a lot of shows," Bloys explained. "In talking with the drama group here, and the nice thing is George has created an entire universe …

"The other reason, frankly, as I said, is the bar is so high. If you only developed one, everything would rest on that one shot … I want to make sure that [any prequel] feels worthy. We have some amazing writers who want to take a shot at this.

"They’re also looking at different times in the universe and all will have different feels. This increases our odds of finding one that’s unique.”