SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max.
During early discussions about how they would pull off the much-anticipated Battle of the Gullet sequence that opens “House of the Dragon” Season 3, director Loni Peristere (who previously directed the “Red Sowing” episode of Season 2, and calls himself the biggest “fanboy” of George R.R. Martin’s books) recalls telling his director of photographer, P.J. Dillon, one important thing: “We need to go back to what epic means for battles at sea.”
Peristere got his core creative team’s juices flowing after seeing the historical Battle of Trafalgar painting, depicting Lord Nelson coming out a “heinous” battle surrounded by dead bodies in water, and catching a London screening of Peter Weir’s 2003 epic “Master and Commander,” which ultimately informed the crew’s approach to capturing the “living, breathing life of a ship.”
The Battle of the Gullet (originally cut from Season 2 due to budget constraints) is finally here, showcasing the epic naval battle between the Blacks, Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) forces, and the Greens, the King’s Landing loyalists under King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney). The sequence required full-scale versions of Corlys’ (Steve Trussaint) and Lohar’s (Abigail Thorn) ships to be built and usable on both a dry tank and wet tank, thousands of gallons of water and extras and, naturally, numerous CGI dragon fights requiring mechanical bucks.
