Before HBO’s House of the Dragon, there was another Game of Thrones spinoff that was in the works that got axed before we even got a look at the filmed pilot. One of the actors cast was none other than Vecna daddy himself, Jamie Campbell Bower, who spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the cancellation.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Bower told EW in an interview. “I don’t think anything happens by chance. At the time of that spin-off not working out, of course it’s sad. Of course it is.” Instead, Bower spoke optimistically about his Stranger Things role as something that “was coming. I just didn’t know.”
Bower was hired to play an undisclosed role in the Game of Thrones prequel series, which was set over one thousand years before the events of the main series. The major ensemble cast included Naomi Watts, Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Miranda Richardson, Josh Whitehouse, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Alex Sharp, and Toby Regbo. It promised to have been a female-driven series that was not going to repeat the same mistakes of rape as in the original series.
It was also supposed to touch upon The Long Night, the first war between the First Men and the White Walkers that led to the development of the Wall in the North, and the first Night’s Watch. The official synopsis read, “The series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”
I would have really loved to have seen this spinoff because the White Walkers were one of those things that were so hyped up by the series, but when we finally got that major battle, it was disappointing. Sometimes an origin of evil prequel series doesn’t work, but I think, considering what we got, it could only serve to improve.
Bower has put his hands in multiple series: Harry Potter, Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, the Starz show Camelot that only a handful of people remember, and he was even originally in Game of Thrones’ first, unaired pilot. He is a fantastic villain, and I’m sorry we didn’t get to see him as potentially an evil Lannister.
(via Entertainment Weekly, featured image: Netflix)
