In a surprise New Years Eve blog post, the author revealed the once live-action ‘Game of Thrones’ spinoff, which has been in development since 2021, will now be animated due to budget constraints.
In a surprise New Years Eve blog post, George R.R. Martin has revealed his once live-action Nine Voyages project, which has been in development since 2021, will now be animated. The Game of Thrones spinoff follows Lord Corlys Velaryon, the greatest seafarer in the Seven Kingdoms who made (you guessed it) nine legendary voyages aboard the great ship Sea Snake. Steve Toussaint currently portrays Lord Corlys in House of the Dragon, but no word on if he will lend his voice to the animated counterpart.
“We have moved Nine Voyages, our series about the legendary voyages of the Sea Snake, over from live-action to animation,” Martin wrote. “A move I support fully. Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live-action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to… well, on and on and on. There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation. So we now have three animated projects underway.”
Martin also revealed that other animated projects have not been “greenlit yet, but I think we are getting close to taking the next step with a couple of them. When this last round of development started a few years back, we had four ideas for animated shows, with some great talents attached. Writers’ rooms and summits, outline and scripts followed in due course… but, alas, two of the original projects were subsequently shelved.”
“Those of you who have read my reports in years past may recall that I prefer to say ‘shelved’ rather than ‘killed,’ as nothing is ever dead for good in Hollywood, and a project put on the shelf one year can be taken off the shelf a few years later,” Martin continued. “I still have hopes of presenting the stories that we shelved in another form, perhaps as graphic novels.”
Other potentially animated spinoffs in development include 10,000 Ships, which tells the tale of Princess Nymeria, who founded the kingdom of Dorne, and an untitled project set in Flea Bottom.