It is unknown when George R.R. Martin will finish writing The Winds of Winter. He had to publish it before the broadcast of the sixth season of Game of Thrones, which premiered in April 2016, and still does not have a date, after multiple delays. What is clear is that the writer is busy and very involved with the future of the fantasy fiction universe on television. As he just reported in an informal post on his website, he has three animated series in development for HBO set in Westeros.
“HBO and I have our animation projects set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. None has received the green light yet but I think we are very close to reaching this step with a couple of them,” she revealed. He is aware that the possibility of producing all of them is negligible since “years ago” they already had “four ideas for animated series with great associated talents” but, after creating writers’ rooms and delivering some scripts, two of those projects were rejected.
And what are these animated series in development? There are two that have been in the HBO offices for years, during which time the prequels to The House of the Dragon, pending broadcast of the second season, and The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, in pre-production phase, received the green light. More details are unknown at the moment. But the other is Nine Voyages, which we had heard about as it entered development as a live-action project.
It is the series about the ship Sea Snake by Corlys Velaryon, the character played by Steve Toussaint in House of the Dragon. Corlys himself designed and built the boat that made nine legendary voyages, allowing him to accumulate a fortune. From Yi Ti, a region of Essos, he brought spices or silk. In Asshai, the port city on the same continent, he lost one of the loves of his life and half of his crew. He was also the first man from Westeros to sail the Thousand Islands of the Shivering Sea.
“Budget constraints likely made the live-action version prohibitively expensive, with half the series taking place at sea and the need to create a different port every week,” he acknowledges of the difficulties of realizing his vision. Luckily, the animation offers them the opportunity to explore those lands until then unknown to the citizens of Westeros and which even led Corlys Velaryon to try to import elephants to the Seven Kingdoms.
“Will they be broadcast? There’s no way to know. Nothing is safe in Hollywood. But if it happens, whether with one, two or three series, I hope we can make them as good and magnificent and fascinating as Blue-Eyed Samurai,” G.R.R. acknowledged. Martin from his website. And if he has decided to reveal details of what is going on regarding the Game of Thrones universe, it is precisely because he is obsessed with this Netflix series.
He considers that he has never seen a more beautiful aesthetic, in addition to such a fantastic story. “It is set in Japan during the Edo period, it is violent, visceral, sexy (and perverted at some points), with fantastic action sequences and a cast of well-developed, colorful, complex and real characters,” he praised.
He is not the only one to have such a favorable opinion: he has accumulated 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88% average on Metacritic with this story about a biracial woman in 17th century Japan who decides to take revenge on four white men.
