HBO's 'House Of The Dragon' Resumes Production After Hitting Pandemic Pause

After a brief pause due to some trouble with COVID-19, HBO's upcoming Game of Thrones prequel has resumed production

House of the Dragon shut down for a couple days after a positive Covid test came out of a cast or crew member in Zone A, which is the inner circle of a film set that contain people that can't easily be replaced or quarantined without issue. They segregate film sets into different zones to minimize the likelihood of on-camera actors, the director and key heads of department can catch COVID.

This is the new normal and all productions working right now have to shoulder the extra expense of these Covid precautions, which also include sanitation, testing and, yes, pausing filming. But it seems like things are looking good for the House of the Dragon crew as the pause ended up only lasting two days, which likely means all further tests have come back negative.

For privacy reasons productions won't usually announce who exactly tested positive, even to the crew. Entertainment Weekly does report the production member who tested positive is still in isolation and all the union-agreed-upon safety protocols have been followed, with the show given a greenlight to resume production.

Now is as good of a time as any to remind people that the Delta variant of COVID-19 is burning through the unvaccinated, so if you were on the fence about getting your jabs and have easy access to the shot you should take it.

As for House of the Dragon, the forthcoming series is a prequel set hundreds of years before the events of Game of Thrones when the Targaryens (and their dragons) controlled the Iron Throne.

Based on George R.R. Martin's novel Fire and Blood, the series has a hell of a cast, including Paddy Considine as King Viserys, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightwoer, Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen, Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower and Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen. Hopefully they all continue to stay safe as production continues so they don't have to pause shooting again.

Despite the brief shutdown, the show is still planning on bowing in 2022 on HBO Max, and there are plenty of other Game of Thrones shows on the way behind it.