Game of Thrones is getting a prequel with a female showrunner – here’s what we know about her

Variety reports that HBO has ordered a pilot for a Game Of Thrones prequel written by Jane Goldman and co-created by George R.R Martin. It’s one of five GOT projects in the works. 

The new show will take place thousands of years before the events in Game Of Thrones and will see the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. 

There’s not much known about the series yet, but The Wrap says that the stories you think you know about the origins of Westeros and the White Walkers and other mysteries about the world of GOT are not the stories we think we know. So it looks like we’re in for an amazing series with this one. 

READ MORE: When Star Wars fans turned into bullies

In 2017, George announced that there were five different scripts being developed in hopes of continuing the quite massive GOT franchise after the end of season 8. HBO confirmed the news, but also said that it was a possibility that none of them would actually happen.

The fact that Jane’s script is reportedly becoming a pilot is amazing news. Not just because it means more GOT episodes and another entertaining show, but it also means that the future of the franchise could be led by a woman. 

So what do we know about Jane Goldman? 

Well, she’s a British screenwriter who’s been in the industry since 1993 and started out as a journalist working on magazines such as Just Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, The Times, Evening Standard, Zero, Daily Star, Total Guitar, Game Zone and Sega Zone. When she was 19 she became a freelance writer. 

READ MORE: Audiences will still watch problematic men in movies - study finds

She’s also written some books including The X-Files Book of the Unexplained, and her first and only novel Dreamworld. 

But what you’ll be really interested to know is that she’s behind some of the biggest movies of the last 20 years. She has a partnership with Matthew Vaughn and they both contributed to the screenplays of Kingsman: The Secret Service and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), as well as X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Stardust and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

She also wrote the scripts for both The Woman in Black and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on her own. Recently she was announced as the writer for the live-action remake of the Little Mermaid as well. Impressive CV.

READ MORE: 5 African movies by women directors you should watch today

So while she’s never written an episode of Game Of Thrones it seems like Westeros’s story is in safe hands. We'll have to wait though. It’s still going to be a while before HBO decides to greenlight this pilot and we won’t see a prequel until at least 2020.