'Game of Thrones' prequel series 'House of the Dragon' begins casting

As movie and TV productions tentatively restart in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown, news emerges that casting has begun for the Game of Thrones prequel series.

Per Entertainment Weekly, work has now resumed on finding actors for House of the Dragon, though as yet there's no news on who will be jumping aboard the hotly-anticipated series.

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Running the show is Miguel Sapochnik, who helmed a number of Game of Thrones' most notable episodes, including The Battle of the Bastards and The Winds of Winter, along with Ryan Condal, who penned and produced dystopian sci-fi series Colony.

The action will be set long before the events of Game of Thrones, and is based on George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, which explored the rise and fall of the Targaryen dynasty.

It will feature the Targaryen civil war which ravaged the fictional world of Westeros, and span a time period of 150 years.

HBO, which also made Game of Thrones, has already signed up for 10 episodes of the series, with Martin recently saying that the production is 'flying along wonderfully' in a recent blog post.

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The Targaryen saga won out in a two-horse race for a series to follow the sprawling, award-winning Game of Thrones.

British screenwriter Jane Goldman was previously working on a series dubbed Bloodmoon in 2019, set during the storyworld's Age of Heroes, which got as far as casting the likes of Naomi Watts, Josh Whitehouse, John Simm and Miranda Richardson.

It filmed a pilot episode in Northern Ireland, but was later scrapped.

House of the Dragon is planned for a 2022 release.