New Game of Thrones Prequel Will Tell the Story of Robert’s Rebellion (Just Not the Way Fans Expected)

The world of Game of Thrones has been successfully expanded with the two HBO spinoff/prequel series, House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. We knew that additional spinoffs were in the works, and today brings word of one project that is going to be unlike any other in the franchise.

One of the biggest backstories that loomed over Game of Thrones from the very beginning was the story of “The Mad King,” Aerys II Targaryen (son of Aegon “Egg” V Targaryen) and the last of the dynasty to ever sit on the Iron Throne. Well, The Mad King is now the official title of new Game of Thrones project, which creator George R.R. Martin is heavily involved in shaping.

The Mad King Will Be Game of Thrones‘ First Stage Production

Deadline is exclusively reporting that Game of Thrones: The Mad King is an official stage production, which is set to premiere this summer in the UK, at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon (with rumors it could move to the West End after summer). The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is one of the most hallowed performance spaces in the theatre world, and speaks to the level of prestige that is going into this project, and the massive hype it is expected to generate.

The Mad King will be directed by Dominic Cooke, who has spent “several years” developing the project alongside playwright Duncan Macmillan. No cast members have been announced yet, but casting for the show is said to already be underway. George R.R. Martin (who started out working at the RSC) came onboard to help develop the show with Macmillan, filling in gaps of previous books and auxiliary writings, while also revealing new details he has never shared through the texts. Macmillan calls Martin a “fantastically trusting collaborator while also being protective of his characters and world,” which is about where we’d expect him to be, after the backlash to the final Game of Thrones Season, House of the Dragon, and his long, long, long-delayed final volumes of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series. Still, both the Harry Potter and Stranger Things franchises have found massive success by selling key bits of storytelling lore as stage plays; Game of Thrones may be making the most ambitious sales pitch yet, and one that actually matches the world and aesthetic of the actual series.

Game of Thrones: The Mad King Is Telling The Story Fans Have Longed to See

The story of Game of Thrones: The Mad King will be set more than five years before the events of the original HBO series. Initial story details point to the play opening on a major event in GoT lore: The Great Tourney at Harrenhal, when Aerys’ eldest son, Rhaegar, changed the history of Westeros by winning the joust and publicly crowning Robert Baratheon’s betrothed, Lyanna Stark, his “queen of love and beauty,” instead of his wife, Elia Martell. That one act sparked forbidden love between Lyanna and Rhaegar, but also destabilized the entire political web of Westeros, leading to King Aerys II descending into madness; Rhaegar and Lyanna eloping and secretly birthing a son (Jon Snow); and Robert Baratheon joining with Ned Stark and Jon Arryn in an uprising called “Robert’s Rebellion,” which ended with the Mad King’s assassination, and the Targaryen Dynasty being destroyed, as Robert Baratheon claims the Iron Throne.

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Game of Thrones fans have long begged for an adaptation of “Robert’s Rebellion” on the screen; in fact, it’s most often pitched as the concept for a Game of Thrones theatrical film. Not only is it very curious to see that premium lore being spent on a stage production, but it’s also curious to see the story centered around Aerys II rather than Robert Baratheon or Ned Stark. Don’t count that famous characters out though – they will be in the play, albeit at much younger ages than we saw them: “The main characters, apart from the king, they’re all sort of in their 20s. If you think about Ned, he was played by Sean Bean in the TV show, and we are playing him in his 20s. So it’s just interesting to see them as young people,” Cooke teases. “Part of the essence of this show is a story of growing up, rites of passage, people becoming who they are.”

We do have the early story detail that Lyanna Stark will be a lead role in the play. During The Mad King, Lyanna will be 16 or 17 years old. “She’s a really good swords person, so she doesn’t really fit the mold of how the women at that time were supposed to behave,” Cooke explains. “But she’s also very intuitive and very smart, and she’s a live wire. She’s got a rebellious streak to her, and also, like everyone in that world, if you’re in these high families, you have to conform. And this is where it’s rather like in Shakespeare.” In case youre wondering, he is referring to the Lyanna and Rhaegar romance: “There’s a bit of a Romeo and Juliet-type story with those two.”

There Will Be Action (But No Deep Lore Knowledge Required)

Like the TV series, the biggest question is how The Mad King will convey the medieval action this story requires (jousting tournaments, epic rebellion battles, a final, bloody act to kill the king). With A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms just pulling off a franchise-high battle episode (at the time of writing this), fans are expecting greatness from GoT again. “I don’t think it’s a secret that there’s a lot of fighting going on, but we’re sort of trying to find a theatrical way of doing things,” Cooke says.

Finally, they want the play to be appealing to theater fans who may never have watched Game of Thrones, and could use this format as their entry point. “One of our ambitions is to make a show that really works for people who don’t know the material, as well as people who do, and every sort of shade in between,” Cooke explains. “Because obviously there will be people who come who don’t know it, and we want to give them a satisfying evening as well. So we’ve sort of tried to make a contained thing as well as something that gives the fans all the extra bits of story that they don’t know.”

You can stream Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max. Discuss the latest with us on the ComicBook Forum!