After many in the industry thought it was clear for series and movies again, positive COVID-19 cases have wreaked havoc on closing many production sets, the latest of which involves the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. The new series is based on the Fire & Blood book by A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, giving audiences a look at the Targaryen reign nearly 200 years before the Game of Thrones timeline. House of the Dragon is the first of HBO’s announced Game of Thrones spinoffs to hit official production, having begun filming in late April 2021.
When COVID-19 first began ramping up in the spring of 2020, plenty of movies and TV shows were delayed for a significant amount of time after their original projected release dates. July’s Black Widow was originally slated to release in May 2020, Stranger Things season 4 was supposed to begin filming in February 2020, and Indiana Jones 5, which didn’t begin production until recently, was originally supposed to premiere on July 9, 2021. House of the Dragon’s production began once many countries had seen a decrease in cases and an increase in vaccination numbers, so the outlook appeared to be positive.
After nearly three months of full-on production, House of the Dragon came down with a positive case at HBO’s UK shoot. According to Deadline, the positive test came from “zone A,” which signifies a member of the cast or crew came down with COVID. House of the Dragon has been quite secretive about who was affected, though EW reported production is already back up and running which means it likely wasn’t one of the principal actors that have close contact with the other key players. HBO hasn’t released an official delay in its 2022 release date yet, so its premiere may be safe from any significant extensions. The two-day shutdown to production may not seem like much, but it could mean a few weeks or months of pushback as HBO will likely enforce much more strict preventative measures.
One of the first movies to see a significant delay from on-set COVID spreads was Robert Pattinson’s The Batman, which had its production shut down early when Pattinson himself tested positive. The Batman’s production was delayed multiple times for COVID, which ended up pushing its intended release date from June 2021 to March 2022. While House of the Dragon hasn’t seen near as many on-set restrictions or recurrent positive tests as The Batman had, the release date may still be pushed back to ensure more precautions that limit the amount of spread on-set. The Batman’s set was only shut down for two weeks after Pattinson’s positive test, though with subsequent connected production delays, the release date was pushed back another five months, a trend House of the Dragon hopefully won't have to follow.
Currently, most of the major productions being shut down for COVID are located in the UK, with Netflix’s Bridgerton seeing multiple positive tests and the new Matilda adaptation having a pandemic-related pause. As the Delta variant courses through the UK and now the US, House of the Dragon likely won’t be the last major production to have positive cases and a shutdown. Since House of the Dragon never announced a hard release date with only 2022 as its estimate, the hope for HBO is that House of the Dragon isn’t delayed again and pushed to a 2023 premiere.