Why HBO Canceled The Naomi Watts Game Of Thrones Show After Spending $35 Million On It

Before the Game of Thrones TV show House of the Dragon, which premieres August 21, HBO was making a different Game of Thrones show starring Naomi Watts with the working title Bloodmoon. HBO reportedly spent as much as $35 million to film the pilot before canceling the show. People connected to the show have now commented on what made the show appealing in the first place and also why it didn't end up going anywhere.

HBO executive Francesca Orsi told The Hollywood Reporter that the show was "very adult" from a tonal perspective. Orsi also described it as "sophisticated and intelligent," adding that the show would have featured a "thematic conversation at the center of it about disenfranchisement in the face of colonialism and religious extremism."

Jane Goldman, who wrote Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, was to be Bloodmoon's showrunner. It was going to be set in the years before Game of Thrones, taking place in the Age of Heroes and The Long Night.

Author George R.R. Martin was involved in Bloodmoon, saying it was a "very difficult assignment" given he hadn't written much about that time period so much would need to be invented for the show.

"We're dealing with a much more primitive people. There were no dragons yet. A lot of the pilot revolved around a wedding of a Southern house to a Northern house and it got into the whole history of the White Walkers," he explained.

Despite Martin raising concerns to HBO management, according to the report, the network moved ahead. Entire sets were built, a cast led by Watts was put together, and a pilot was shot for between $30 million and $35 million, according to THR.

HBO has never released the pilot footage publicly, and Martin himself has never seen it, according to the report.

As for why HBO canned Bloodmoon, programming boss Casey Bloys said the show "required a lot more invention" and was deemed "higher risk."

"There wasn't anything glaringly wrong with it. Development and pilots are hard," Bloys said.

Robert Greenblatt, then chairman of WarnerMedia, told the site that the Bloodmoon pilot "wasn't unwatchable or horrible or anything." He said it was "very well produced and looked extraordinary," but it lacked the "depth and richness" of the original Game of Thrones, so HBO stopped developing the show.

Goldman, the showrunner, said it was a "total shock" for Bloodmoon to stall out like it did. She landed on her feet quickly, though, as Goldman was hired by Disney to write the new live-action Little Mermaid.

The House of the Dragon premieres August 21 on HBO. Another high-profile fantasy show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, arrives not long after on September 2 via Prime Video.