War is coming. Two rival houses – HBO and Amazon – draw swords to fight for dominance in the realm of mega-budget fantasy TV. The Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon (Foxtel) will meet The Lord of the Rings spin-off The Rings of Power (Prime Video) in an epic battle for eyeballs. The former, though, has the jump on the forces of Middle Earth, with a release date almost two weeks earlier, on Monday, August 22 (The Rings of Power is released on Friday, September 2).

Yet House of the Dragon’s joint showrunner Miguel Sapochnik is playing down talk of the shows being in conflict. “No, we’re not at war with the Lord of the Rings. We have dragons, but if you look at the original [Game of Thrones], it had white walkers and giants and direwolves and the Three-Eyed Raven … In a way, we’re making an even more grounded version of a fantasy show. And the dragons are treated, at least to start with, as very, very, very large horses.”

The Telegraph London