With a smaller budget than the past two series in the Game of Thrones universe, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has had to find some clever ways to hide certain financial challenges in the prequel series’ biggest moments.
Unlike the sprawling, battle-heavy, dragon-featuring, and CGI-requiring Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, the Ira Parker-created A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a much more contained and smaller tale in terms of scope and scale. Furthermore, with only six episodes coming in at about a half-hour each, it makes sense that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ budget is significantly smaller than its predecessors.
Still, the budgetary constraints of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms meant Parker and his team were presented with some obstacles when it came to certain practicalities in the series’ major set pieces. In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 5, that included the fight sequences during the Trial of Seven. Since the series didn’t have the financial resources to hire thousands of extras to stand around watching the fight, Ira Parker revealed to CBR that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms compensated by exaggerating the fog to better conceal the less crowded background:
“Canonically, a fog rolls into Ashford on the morning of [the trial], so that was very important for us to represent. It does make for the most badass looking fight ever. You bet. We took it from the novella. We were using things that were appropriate and George spoke of function over form. But we also have the two best stunt coordinators and second directors in the game. We honestly embellished a lot of the fog.
We don’t have a lot of money on this show. We have about a quarter for every dollar. We had to be careful how we hid things and how we made it feel like we weren’t hiding things. We let you focus on what we want you to be focusing on rather than not having a crowd of 10,000 people like you probably would have at a Coachella/Glastonbury type tournament here. It’s funny how not having any money just forces you to find really cool creative ways that maybe you wouldn’t have come to completely if you had just had the ability to spend it.”
Thankfully for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the dense fog described in George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight novella allowed the series a creative outlet for disguising the lack of a high-budget, massive crowd. While the absence of a big crowd did form a challenge in adapting the intense book scene for the screen, it also created an opportunity for Parker and the creative team to enhance the focus on the more important aspects of the Trial of Seven happening on the field rather than spectators’ reactions.
In March 2025, HBO executive Francesca Orsi confirmed that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ budget was under $10 million per episode. Meanwhile, House of the Dragon season 1’s budget was estimated to be $20 million per episode, with Game of Thrones‘ early budget beginning at about $6 million per episode before growing to $15 million per entry by the final season.
With filming already underway for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2, which will drop on HBO in 2027, Parker has teased that the budget for the next outing has remained the same as season 1. Still, the scale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will remain approximately the same as the freshman season, which means Parker may again have to come up with clever ways to overcome financial challenges on set.
Dunk actor Peter Claffey revealed in December 2025 that season 2 would bring Dunk and Egg to Dorne, though the majority of George R.R. Martin’s The Sworn Sword novella takes place in the Reach. While season 2’s story arguably has a smaller scale than the first season, a potential A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 3 may require an increased budget if adapting Martin’s The Mystery Knight, which raises the stakes higher for Dunk and Egg’s dynamic in Westeros.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ season 1 finale releases on HBO/HBO Max at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 22.
- Release Date
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January 18, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Ira Parker
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Peter Claffey
Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall
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