Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss want an understandable break from Westeros after Season 8, but not TV entirely. The two are already plotting an HBO return, developing a new Confederate drama set in an alternate modern day following a second Civil War.

HBO confirms the ambitious new drama will be executive produced and written by Benioff and Weiss, with Nichelle Tramble Spellman, Malcolm Spellman, Carolyn Strauss and Bernadette Caulfield also executive producing. The series follows an alternate history in which slavery is a modern, legal institution in a successfully-seceded South:

CONFEDERATE chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War. The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution. The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone – freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.

Said Benioff and Weiss, who noted they’d originally developed Confederate as a movie before a decade of TV experience changed their minds:

We have discussed CONFEDERATE for years, originally as a concept for a feature film. But our experience on ‘Thrones’ has convinced us that no one provides a bigger, better storytelling canvas than HBO. There won’t be dragons or White Walkers in this series, but we are creating a world, and we couldn’t imagine better partners in world-building than Nichelle and Malcolm, who have impressed us for a long time with their wit, their imagination and their Scrabble-playing skills.

The pair will still executive produce any potential Game of Thrones spinoffs chosen from the five in development, though HBO boss Casey Bloys recently noted their actual involvement was entirely up to them. The announcement also notes that Confederate production will begin after the final season of Game of Thrones, which may not be until 2019.

We’ll see if HBO or the creators have anything more to say from Comic-Con 2017, so stay tuned for more on both Confederate and Game of Thrones in the meantime.

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