By The second season of HBO’s highly-anticipated series House of the Dragon, featuring the talents of Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, and Olivia Cooke, races toward the finish line of its filming schedule with location shoots wrapped in Bourne Woods, Surrey. Here’s what to expect and what they filmed in the last couple of days.
One month of filming to go
With location shoots finally wrapped, the production of House of the Dragon moves back once again to Leavesden Studios where they will continue filming until the end of September 2023.
Before filming began, we reported that filming would be wrapped around September/October, and evidently that schedule hasn’t changed much. Only that it’s not early October, it’s late September.
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA didn’t affect House of the Dragon either. George RR Martin confirmed that the scripts for the season were done before the writers strike began.
The actors strike didn’t have a significant effect either as all actors on the show are under UK Equity contracts rather than SAG, with a few also being part of SAG union, like Matt Smith for example. That being said, when the actors strike began in July, the production managed to rearrange some of the filming schedule and create “mini-vacations” for SAG members as a loophole of sorts. They weren’t officially on a solidarity strike, but on a small break and were back to filming shortly after.
All in all, that didn’t create any scheduling issues and filming is on track to wrap without delays.
Last days of Rook’s Rest: Aegon falls?
After a long weekend with a bank holiday on Monday, production for House of the Dragon Season 2 resumed in Bourne Woods, Surrey, finishing what was left to film for the Battle at Rook’s Rest for episode 4 of the new season, which is titled “A Dance of Dragons“.
One of the scenes that was filmed was described by our reader Sara Talib as “Criston Cole on his knees next to someone injured or dead.” The first thing that comes to mind for this is obviously King Aegon, who is badly burnt and injured after him and his brother Prince Aemond going against Princess Rhaenys on their dragons.
As a reminder, a few days ago crew were spotted carrying a burnt costume labelled “Aegon”.
For a more detailed account of the filming for Battle at Rook’s Rest over the last two weeks, read more here.
Another exciting thing was filmed the next day, when we saw the Green cavalry riding up the hill with a battle cry with soldiers following them.
Hard to say what exactly we are seeing, but given that the area is badly burnt and filled with corpses, this is the Greens finally riding towards Rook’s Rest and taking the castle.
Here’s another angle of this scene:
On the final day, House of the Dragon filmed another scene with the Greens, this time outside of the battlefield. They were in a camp along with their horses.
No loud action was heard and no yelling, so it’s a quiet scene, thanks to the descriptions by Sara Talib.
And this marks the end of location shoots for House of the Dragon Season 2. With England, Spain and Wales, the season is filmed across three countries.
The production of Season 2 is expected to wrap in September and is expected to be released in 2024. Do follow Redanian Intelligence for news on House of the Dragon and other fantasy series.
