‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Begins Filming: New Cast & More Updates

House of the Dragon Season 3 has officially begun filming what’s now confirmed to be an eight-episode season. The HBO fantasy drama announced its return to production on Monday, March 31, with a video from star Emma D’Arcy on set and a casting announcement for two new characters. Here’s a breakdown of all the Season 3 developments so far.

Who is in the House of the Dragon Season 3 cast?

Season 3’s newest cast members are Tommy Flanagan as Ser Roderick Dustin and Dan Fogler as Ser Torrhen Manderly. Their castings were announced on March 31 along with the start of production announcement and video. The first new cast member for Season 3 was James Norton, whose casting was announced on January 31, 2025. He joins the series as book character Ormund Hightower. He’s previously been seen in Grantchester and Happy Valley and will star alongside Game of Thrones alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in the upcoming series King and Conqueror.

Flanagan is known for playing Filip “Chibs” Telford in Sons of Anarchy and the Mayans M.C. spinoff, Cicero in Gladiator, and more. Fogler starred in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, A Complete Unknown, The Offer, and more.

Ormund is Otto’s nephew, Alicent and Gwayne’s cousin, and the Lord of Oldtown. He is presently leading the Hightower host in a march on King’s Landing to support his house against Rhaenyra.

The fight for the Throne is far from over.

S3 of #HOTD is now in production. pic.twitter.com/NUe4POwIJM

— House of the Dragon (@HouseofDragon) March 31, 2025

Returning stars are D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint, Rhys Ifans, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, Matthew Needham, Tom Bennett, Kieran Bew, Kurt Egyiawan, Freddie Fox, Clinton Liberty, Gayle Rankin, and Abubakar Salim. Unless she appears in flashback form or in some kind of vision as seen at Harrenhal this season, Eve Best will not be back as Rhaenys. Her character met her tragic fate in the Battle of Rook’s Rest depicted in Season 2 Episode 4.

D’Arcy is seen in costume as Rhaenyra in the start-of-production video shared on X/Twitter, above. The slate D’Arcy holds in the video reveals that they’re working on a scene from Season 3 Episode 3 on the first day back on set.

Based on George R.R. Martin‘s Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen. War has broken out between the two sides of the family after Alicent Hightower (Cooke) usurped the Iron Throne in favor of her son, Aegon (Glynn-Carney) at the end of Season 1 and robbing Rhaenyra (D’Arcy) of her inheritance. This was followed by the death of Rhaenyra’s young son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) at the hand of Aemond’s (Mitchell) dragon Vhagar. Season 2 revealed what happened after those tragic events, ending with the setup for one of the most intense battles from Fire & Blood, the Battle of the Gullet, in Season 3.

Season 3 directors are Clare Kilner, Nina Lopez-Corrado, Andrij Parekh, and Loni Peristere. Production credits are: Co-Creator/showrunner/executive producer Ryan Condal; Co-Creator/Executive Producer, George R.R. Martin; Executive Producers Sara Hess, Melissa Bernstein, Kevin de la Noy, Vince Gerardis, David Hancock, Philippa Goslett.

When does House of the Dragon Season 3 come out?

The Targaryen civil war will take place over just two more seasons of House of the Dragon. Condal announced on August 5, the day after the Season 2 finale, that the Game of Thrones prequel will end with Season 4 and that production was expected to begin in “early-ish 2025.”

The House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere date will be announced at a later time, but for an idea of when Season 3 could come out, we can look to the time gap between the first two seasons. With just under two years having passed between Seasons 1 and 2, it would be reasonable to presume that it would take around the same time for Season 3 to debut. That’s not set in (dragon) stone, however.

Production on House of the Dragon Season 2 began in April 2023 following the October 2022 finale. Production on Season 2 was not delayed by the Hollywood strikes that summer, as the scripts for the eight-episode season were completed prior to the start of the writers’ strike. Most of the actors in the series are not members of SAG-AFTRA but rather U.K. acting unions, thus allowing them to continue working. Season 2 took about six months to film, with several months of post-production work after that. Season 2 then premiered in June. Based on that, a 2026 release date for Season 3 seems likely.

How many episodes will there be in House of the Dragon Season 3?

HBO’s March 31 announcement confirmed that Season 3 will consist of eight episodes.

House of the Dragon Season 2 was shortened to eight episodes following the 10-episode second season. Condal was asked about the anticipated episode count for Season 3 during the press conference, to which he replied, “I haven’t had discussions with HBO about it. I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from Season 2 on.”

What will happen in House of the Dragon Season 3?

The Season 2 finale ended with intense buildup to a major battle from the book, the Battle of the Gullet. Condal says to expect that battle to take place early in Season 3, in addition to explaining why it wasn’t in Season 2. He says it will be “the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off.”

“We we were trying to give the Gullet, which is arguably the most anticipated — well, I would say maybe the second-most-anticipated action event of ‘Fire & Blood,’ trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves,” Condal told journalists. “Obviously, as anybody that’s seen the finale, we’re building to that event. That event will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling of House of the Dragon. Based on what we know now, it should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off, and we just wanted to have the time, the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans and in the way it’s deserved.”

The Battle of the Gullet is a fight between Rhaenyra’s forces and the Aegon’s, now led by Aemond. As teased in the Season 2 finale, the battle is fought by air and sea. Dragons and their dragonriders will face off as Corlys (Toussaint) leads his fleet in battle against the greens’ naval arsenal. The finale showed Tyland Lannister (Hall) successfully recruiting an armada from Essos to Aegon’s side, led by the Triarchy Admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn). They’ll face off in the Gullet, the stretch of water between Driftmark and Dragonstone. Blackwater Bay opens into the Gullet.

Condal says they “wanted to build” more “anticipation toward” this epic battle in Season 2. “I know everybody wants this to come out every summer,” he said. “It’s just that the show is so complex that we’re really making multiple feature films every season. So I apologize for the wait, but I will just say if Rook’s Rest and the Red Sowing are any indication, we’re gonna pull off a hell of a win with the Battle the Gullet in the future.”

House of the Dragon, Season 3 Premiere, TBA, HBO