Watch: Game of Thrones prequel `House of the Dragon’ trailer released

The wait is finally over. Game of Thrones (GoT) prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ trailer has been released on YouTube. The makers have also announced the release date of the drama series.

The two-minute trailer revealed action sequences and dragons that will play a major role in the upcoming series. It also highlighted the troubled Targaryens fighting for power and the return of the iron throne. “History does not remember the blood. It remembers names,” read the description of the new teaser trailer.

The trailer featured the original sound score from the previous series as it played subtly over the dialogues in the teaser. It even featured some bits of the House Targaryen theme song from GoT.

The series is set 200 years before the events witnessed in the original series, which became HBO’s biggest hit. The new series is written by author George R.R. Martin based on his book Fire & Blood and co-creators Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik.

The new series stars Paddy Considine of Peaky Blinders as King Viserys Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen.

The TV channel is calling the new clip a teaser trailer despite releasing one officially last October. The recent video is more extensive though. The clip revealed that the show will be premiering on August 21.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Game of Thrones prequel isn’t the only project that the channel has decided to air soon. HBO has several other projects for the GoT franchise up its sleeve, including one based on the world of Westeros.

The show will be going head-to-head with another fantasy launch — Amazon’s big-budget The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power which will premiere 12 days after House of the Dragon goes on air.

Sapochnik had previously told the publication, “House of the Dragon has its own tone that will evolve and emerge throughout the show. But first, it’s very important to pay respects and homage to the original series, which was pretty groundbreaking. We’re standing on the shoulders of that show and we’re only here because of that show. So the most important thing for us to do is to respect that show as much as possible and try and complement it rather than reinventing it.”

He even said that there’s no comparison between GoT and House of the Dragon as the upcoming show is “something else” with a different crew, people, and even a different tone.

“Hopefully, fans will enjoy it for the thing that it is. We’ll be lucky if we ever come close to what the original show was, so we’re just putting our heads down and getting on with it and hoping what we come up with is worthy of having a Game of Thrones title,” Sapochnik concluded.

Based on the well-known books by Martin, GoT first aired its pilot episode in 2011 and ended with the eighth and final season in 2019.