While TV fans eagerly await the epic return to Westeros, "House of Dragons" star Matt Smith graciously gave us an update on when the Targaryen family will return to the small screen in "House of Dragons" Season 2

Smith, who plays Damon Targaryen on the hit HBO series, recently revealed on the BBC podcast "The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show" that the Emmy Award-winning fantasy series will return for a second season this summer

"August, I think summer This summer," Smith revealed

This is in contrast to the "early summer of 2024" release date mentioned by HBO boss Casey Bloys at a press event this past November Early summer would be more like June, not August

Smith also gave an update on the current production status of Season 2 We haven't seen anything yet, but we finished it last year So we have to do all the ADR and all that kind of work," he said, referring to "automatic dialogue replacement," or dubbing, which shows like "House of Dragons" use to get clear audio for big, noisy action scenes

HBO has not yet announced an official premiere date for "House of the Dragon" Season 2, but at least fans can now look forward to it The second season of the "Game of Thrones" prequel series will be set approximately 200 years before the events depicted in the show and will focus on the struggle for succession of House Targaryen in its heyday

More than a year after Season 1 ended (the finale, "The Black Queen," aired on October 23, 2022), "House of Dragons" viewers got a sneak peak of the second season, scheduled for November 2023 The minute-long teaser trailer shows the growing conflict between Lenila Targaryen (Emma Darcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke)

"There is no war more hateful to the gods than a war between kin," says Rainira in the video To which her aunt, Lenis Targaryen, played by Eve Best, replies, "And there is no war more bloody than the war between dragons" (Indeed, the teaser features many fire-breathing dragons)

"House of Dragons" is one of the few high-profile TV shows that was not adversely affected by the 2023 writers' and actors' strike This is because the show's script was reportedly completed before the National Writers Guild went on strike, and the majority of the cast consisted of UK-based actors who were not subject to the contractual restrictions of Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild

As such, filming on Season 2 was allowed to continue until last year, and production appears to be underway for a summer 2024 release

As for future seasons of "House of the Dragon," series co-creator George R R Martin revealed in a December 2023 blog post on his website that production on seasons 3 and 4 is already underway

He wrote: "I also locked myself in a room for two days with ['HOTD' co-creator] Ryan Condal and his writing staff (Sarah Hess, Ti Mickel, David Hancock, and Philippa Goslett) to work on "HOUSE OF THE DRAGON" and discussed the third and fourth seasons of the show It was a lively, fun discussion, we did good work, and two days probably wasn't enough

Tom's Guide will keep you posted when the release date for "HOUSE OF THE DRAGON" Season 2 is officially announced Until then, you can stream the show's first season with a Max subscription