A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker confesses season 2 production has had a few unexpected delays.

Parker, 41, opened up about what’s to come for the Game of Thrones prequel’s second season, telling The Hollywood Reporter that while production on season 1 was “so totally hard,” the second season has proven more difficult.

“The speed at which we had to shoot these things and how quickly we had to move around,” he explained. “It felt more like an indie film, or even a student film, than it did a Game of Thrones production.”

But season 2 “is somehow 10 times harder,” he admitted.

“This has been a brutal, brutal season,” he said. “The biggest part has been this weather. We had to go somewhere for some heat and dryness because Book Two takes place in a drought.”

The HBO series is based on George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, with season two based onThe Sworn Sword, while season 1 was based on The Hedge Knight.

Parker continued by revealing that the weather difficulty came with a “once-in-a-100-year storm” in Gran Canaria, Spain.

“It kept getting water, and we got rained out of locations. We got flooded. There were national emergencies,” he said.

Eventually, they went on hiatus, and once they returned, “it happened again.”

“There’s been so much stopping and starting that it’s been hard to get into a real cadence,” he said. “This has been going on too long for a six-episode season, and we still have three more weeks of shooting.”

Despite the numerous delays, Parker said that season 2 is still expected to premiere in early 2027.

Parker acknowledged how helpful series leads Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell have been through the process. “Peter and Dexter are a year more experienced and have their thing down.”

“So we’ve sidestepped some of the growing pains of season one,” he declared, before adding, “season two has been a f—ing bastard.”

The hit series’ timeline takes place between the other Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, and the original, Game of Thrones. It stars Claffey as Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall, the titular “hedge knight,” and Ansell as Aegon “Egg” Targaryen, a young child whom Dunk names as his “diminutive” squire.

Claffey previously told PEOPLE that there was “a chase for this role” during the early stages of the series, with “everybody was trying to” land the part. “It’s such an amazing novella, and so well written and such a beautiful character that I was just trying my hardest to get the role,” the former rugby player recalled.

He also talked about how Martin “was quite involved in the casting process.” He added that the best-selling author had faith in the Irish actor’s approach. “He kind of left me to my own devices,” he said, adding, “I’m sure he probably saw the way that I wanted to do things, or the way that I was trying to do things, and he seemed to be pretty happy.”