Somewhere, probably locked away deep in a vault inside HBO, is (apparently) an alternate Game of Thrones ending.
"Well, we shot an alternative ending," Kristofer Hivju, the man viewers knew as Tormund, the Wildling, told Metro. "That was mostly for fun, but I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you about that."
Metro said they pressed him for more details, like who was involved in the ending, but he wasn't budging. There have been rumors for years that Game of Thrones was shooting extra endings and scenes with fake scripts in an effort to keep spoilers from getting out. In 2018, Maisie Williams downplayed those rumors. "Well, I heard this and I immediately thought, ‘I don't think we've got the budget to shoot lots of different endings,'" Williams said on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The ending of Game of Thrones, and much of the Emmy-winning final season, was met with ire from some fans. There was even a petition launched asking HBO to redo the whole thing without creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. Obviously, that is not happening.
The world of Game of Thrones is still alive at HBO. After passing on a prequel set thousands of years in Westeros' past starring Naomi Watts, another prequel, this one set closer to the events of Game of Thrones. House of the Dragon got a full season order of 10 episodes on HBO Max. The new series follows the Targaryens 300 years before the events of GoT. George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal are behind it with Condal and director Miguel Sapochnik serving as showrunners.
"The Game of Thrones universe is so rich with stories," HBO's Casey Bloys said. "We look forward to exploring the origins of House Targaryen and the earlier days of Westeros along with Miguel, Ryan, and George."