Los Angeles (AFP)

George RR Martin, father of the "Game of Thrones" universe, signed a five-year agreement with the HBO television channel to develop "new content", which could include new adventures featuring heroes and dragons in the world of Westeros.

Martin, whose "Game of Thrones" series of novels spawned the hit "Game of Thrones" series, is already working on an adaptation of a prelude to the series, "House of the Dragon", which takes place 300 years earlier.

The spinoff series is announced for 2022.

The WarnerMedia group, which owns HBO, announced Monday in a statement to AFP that the author had signed "a global contract for a period of five years" to "develop content for HBO and HBO Max", service of video on demand from the channel.

The press release does not however specify whether this contract relates to other projects located in the universe of "Game of Thrones".

But the saga has been so successful in this world, with 59 Emmy Awards to its chase chart in the span of eight seasons, that spinoff series seem inevitable.

According to the specialist magazine Hollywood Reporter, the contract of several tens of millions of dollars would include the account of the warrior queen Nymeria, supposed to have reigned a millennium before the events of "Game of Thrones", whose working title would be "10,000 Ships ".

Among the projects under study in the world of Westeros would also include "9 Voyages", by the creators of the historical series "Rome", and a dark tale set in a sordid and infamous district of the city of Port-Réal , "Culpucier" ("Fleabottom" in original version).

A television series adapted from "Tales of Dunk and Egg", a collection of short stories published by George RR Martin about a knight errant and his squire, is also the subject of persistent rumors.

In its press release, WarnerMedia, on the other hand, confirms that the writer will be part of the production team of two HBO projects inspired by the works of other authors of fantastic novels: "Who is afraid of death" ("Who fears death ? ") by Nnedi Okorafor and" Roadmarks "by Roger Zelazny.

Martin is also involved in the adaptation for Netflix of one of his first short stories, "Les Rois des sables" ("Sandkings") and this multiplication of projects makes fans of the "Iron Throne" fear that the author, aged 72 years old, could not complete his literary cycle, already overtaken by the television series.

It's been almost ten years since the last volume of the saga, "A Dance with Dragons", was published.

© 2021 AFP