The Russian premiere of the House of the Dragon series, a prequel to the American project Game of Thrones, will officially take place in the Amediateka online cinema on August 22, a representative of the video service told RBC without providing any details.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WarnerMedia before the merger with the Discovery TV channel in April 2022), which owns the HBO TV channel, officially suspended its operations in Russia in early March. Its studio, Warner Bros., canceled the Russian release of The Batman with Robert Pattinson the day before the premiere, as well as all subsequent releases. Jason Kilar, CEO of the company, said in a statement that the restrictions on work in Russia included "the cessation of broadcasting of channels, the cessation of licensing new content with Russian companies, and the suspension of planned releases of games and movies."

Amedia TV entered into an extended contract with HBO in 2017. Then the company received exclusive rights to almost all the content of the American television network in Russia, as well as the right to work under a double brand - its own and Home of HBO. The previous deal, concluded in 2013, provided Amedia TV with an exclusive for the first showing of HBO series on pay TV and online on the same day as the American premiere, but after that the projects could be released by other broadcasters. Under the new 2021 agreement, Amediateka became the only online cinema to present the entire WarnerMedia serial catalog from HBO Max, as well as content from the WarnerMedia library in the Russian market.

The company did not announce the termination of the existing agreements. At the end of June, Amediateka even released a new season of another popular HBO project - the Westworld series. Prior to that, for several months there were no new releases on the platform.

RBC's source in the media market then explained this by the fact that the studio continued to fulfill the current contract. Variety previously also noted that WarnerMedia management does not plan to terminate existing contracts and revoke licenses for released projects.

House of the Dragon takes place 200 years before Game of Thrones. George Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels, announced plans to create a prequel back in 2018, six months before the premiere of the final season of Game of Thrones. The budget for each episode - and there are ten in the first season - is about $20 million. The most expensive episodes of the last season cost about $15 million each.