HBO adores to toy with our emotions. First, they stop airing Game of Thrones, and now they’re taking our one succour — the promise of a prequel coming soon — away from us. That’s right: The Thrones prequel starring Naomi Watts was canceled by HBO after a screening of the captain left execs concerned. If that seems somewhat vague to you, we are in agreement — what went wrong ?!

Deadline reports that, as of Tuesday, the prequel’s writer and showrunner Jane Goldman had been emailing the direct and crew about the project’s cancellation. The campaign was a co-creation of Goldman and George R.R. Martin, and HBO firstly required the captain back in June 2018.

This prequel was set to show the GoT world about 5,000 years before we known to, offering this logline:” The streak recounts the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying confidentials of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white baby-walkers, the puzzles of the East to the Starks of legend … it’s not the narrative we think we know .”

HBO had commissioned various GoT prequel writes, but this was the first to be approved and start shooting. After the production wrap this summer in Northern Ireland( during which there were reportedly complications ), the aviator underwent a interminable post-production process — one realise even longer after HBO firstly watched the pilot.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO has more #GameOfThrones in the pipeline, but the prequel written by Jane Goldman and starring Naomi Watts is no longer included happening https :// t.co/ 15 lwhPQpnv

— Deadline Hollywood (@ DEADLINE) October 29, 2019

According to TVLine, HBO execs sought a second round of revises after first regard the aviator. But Goldman and Martin still weren’t able to meet their possibilities, and HBO then decided to pass altogether.

Since ordering this first pilot, HBO contributed the green light to a second prequel: a looked at at the early days of House Targaryen, co-created by Colony’s Ryan J. Condal and, once again, George R.R. Martin. This streak will closely mirror Martin’s Fire& Blood, and takes place only 300 years before the events of GoT began.

We may never know what exactly went wrong with this pilot — perhaps Martin heard she’d never seen GoT and purposely tanked the whole thing?( We kid .) Harmonizing to Deadline, the original GoT pilot faced similar hurdles, costing HBO $ 10 million and re-shooting most places from the original reduction. So, at least this project is in good company.

Whether it’s the Targaryen prequel or something else, all we can say is this: We better be seeing more of the Seven Kingdoms before 2021.

Read more: sheknows.com