Light has been shed on HBO's scrapped Game of Thrones spinoff 10,000 Ships courtesy of writer Brian Helgeland, who revealed more on its plot and why it was never greenlit.
Speaking to Inverse, Helgeland said 10,000 Ships would blend the themes of the Sinbad films with The Odyssey as it told the story of Princess Nymeria and her floating city state around 1,000 years before Game of Thrones.
"My script was based on Queen Nymeria and this little blurb about her that was in a Westeros encyclopedia," he said. "Essentially, it was the story of Moses but swapping him out for Nymeria. Her country gets ruined and her people are forced to live on the water, which is why the show was called 10,000 Ships. They end up having to leave and find a new home like the Israelites leaving Egypt.
"She’s leading all these people, trying to hold everyone together but things are always in danger of falling apart as they travel around a fictionalized version of the Mediterranean, looking for a new home to settle in. Their life was nomadic, living in a raft city that was bound together, this big floating city. Sometimes the characters would come ashore but they ultimately get driven off the land as they search for a home, their version of the promised land."
Helgeland said the show turned out well, and maintained that "nothing is ever dead," but HBO didn't pick it up fully because it was too distant from the original Game of Thrones series.
"It came out great, but I think they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original," he said. "That’s why it hasn’t been picked up yet, but nothing is ever dead."
Game of Thrones ended in 2019 on somewhat of a sour note following seven seasons of largely beloved TV. IGN gave it a 6/10 in our review, saying: "Though Season 8 was underwhelming, Game of Thrones remains more ambitious and engaging than the majority of other TV shows."
Several Game of Thrones spinoffs are still set to keep the legacy going, though. House of the Dragon, which will debut its second season in June 2024, tells the history of Game of Thrones' Targaryen family (from which Daenerys comes) and Season 1 spans around 20 years by itself. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, meanwhile, will tell the story of a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, also of Daenerys' lineage, Aegon V Targaryen.
10,000 Ships isn't the only scrapped Game of Thrones spinoff; other ones include Snow, which would follow Kit Harington's Jon Snow after the events of the main show, and The Sea Snake, which would be about House Velaryon and its head Lord Corlys.
Other series have risen and fallen over the years too, including one cancelled project based on The Long Night and Age of Heroes that HBO spent $30 million on.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
