Confederate will take place “in an alternative timeline,” according to HBO’s press release, in which the southern states have created a nation where “slavery … has evolved into a modern institution,” and the North and South are divided by “the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone.”
Like Game of Thrones, the show will follow a large ensemble cast, including “freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall,” as Confederate progresses to “the Third American Civil War.”
The show — written by Weiss and Benioff, and executive produced by Weiss, Benioff, Nichelle Tramble Spellman (Justified, The Good Wife), Malcolm Spellman (Empire), Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones), and Bernadette Caulfield (Game of Thrones, Big Love) — will begin production after the final season of Game of Thrones.