The ‘House of the Dragon’ season finale has arrived early — and not on HBO’s terms.
On Monday afternoon, HBO, along with the BBC, released a digital poster teasing an hour-long promotional special the network is planning for its upcoming return of fantasy series Game of Thrones. The poster, which was created by graphic designer Dave Rapkin, promises that the special will “explore the history and mythology of Game of Thrones” and “reveal the secrets about where the show’s power lies.” But the poster doesn’t name any of Game of Thrones’ actors or actresses.
While most details about the special remained vague Monday, Rapkin did hint that the show will indeed be coming back, at some point: “This is going to be a Game of Thrones special. There will be a surprise.”
The Game of Thrones promo release arrives just a short time after HBO quietly removed several promotional posters from the website of Game of Thrones’ new show The Sopranos, which are now up for sale at a price that indicates they’re more promotional than part of the show itself.
The Sopranos’ posters, which were put up by HBO without editorial interference and were paid by HBO, include four different versions of the same poster — each with a different photograph of one of HBO’s most famous actors. None of the posters has an explicit mention of the show’s title or plot, as the posters for Game of Thrones do. The Sopranos posters — which the website says were developed by HBO and show co-creator David Chase — read “HBO Presents-Sopranos: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “HBO Presents-Sopranos: The War”.
Also gone from HBO’s promotional posters for the new show are the two posters for The Shield, one of the shows about the fictional police department The Shield from The Wire. The Shield posters, which were also paid for by HBO, read “HBO Presents-The Shield: The Man on the Edge of the World” and “HBO Presents-The Shield: The Big Game”.
HBO’s removal of the Shield posters followed an online petition that called on the network to pull the show from its promo posters, which has earned a total of about 400,000 signatures. There’s