What is the status of the TV and movie rights to ASOIAF given the end of the original HBO series?

Question

Now, I'm not a Game of Thrones fan, but a number of facts are floating around the internet which I will outline below as I understand them. (I could dig up more citations, and I would appreciate if someone else did, but I personally can't invest the time right now for facts which don't seem to be in dispute and aren't really critical to the question.)

• George R.R. Martin intends the ASOIAF series to be seven novels long
• Five have been completed, two have been pending for eight years, with no end in sight
• He recently made a comment implying that The Winds of Winter should be complete by July 2020.
• Due to the long delay in writing the final books, the Game of Thrones TV series passed the novels.
• Martin provided outlines to the writers of the TV series (David Benioff) and (D.B.Weiss)
• It's the general consensus that D&D lost interest in the series, and agreed to do fewer and shorter seasons than HBO (and the fan base) wanted
• The final 8th season of GoT was widely panned for its writing, for being rushed, nonsensical and undoing or destroying various previous plot and character deployment
• As a result of this there is a petition to remake the final season which has garnered 1.5 million signatures

Now, it is clearly unlikely that HBO will remake anything in the short term (though there are spin offs). However, Hollywood tends to find a way to make whatever money there is to be made. And there is clearly a lot of money to make. This together with the fact that the final release of the novels, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring in two or five or ten years would seem to provide a context and opportunity to make definitive TV/movie content covering this material.

What is the status of any rights to make or remake material from ASOIAF, in particular covering the yet-to-be-released novels?

Links: Martin's comments after the airing of the last episode of GoT.

Answer 1

In 2007, HBO acquired the film and TV rights to GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series of books. It would appear (bearing in mind that these deals are subject to intense commercial confidentiality) that this includes all future works within the same fictional universe, noting that a) the options were exercised when only four of the books had been written and published and b) that 'option clauses' do typically cover any and all writings within the same book series or setting.

Home Box Office has acquired an option on the television and film rights to my fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, in hopes of bringing the story to television as an original, ongoing HBO series. We have been working out the details for months, but the deal is finally done and the pieces are in place, so it’s official.

_{^{HBO OPTIONS ICE & FIRE - JANUARY 18, 2007}}

There's no good indication when the optioned rights to any new works would lapse and typically this includes the right to also remake or reboot a series (from earlier works) if the studio so desire, possibly subject to agreement with the author.

Answer 2

In addition to @Valorum's great answer, I did see the following article: A 'Game of Thrones' Sequel Is Not an Option for HBO's Top Executive

The three successor shows are all prequels. In the finale, Arya goes on to explore what's west of Westeros. Have you considered exploring sequels? Specifically, Arya Stark as she travels west of Westeros?

Nope, nope, nope. No. Part of it is, I do want this show — this Game of Thrones, Dan and David's show — to be its own thing. I don't want to take characters from this world that they did beautifully and put them off into another world with someone else creating it. I want to let it be the artistic piece they've got. That's one of the reasons why I'm not trying to do the same show over. George has a massive, massive world; there are so many ways in. That's why we're trying to do things that feel distinct — and to not try and redo the same show. That's probably one of the reasons why, right now, a sequel or picking up any of the other characters doesn't make sense for us.