Hey, ‘Game of Thrones‘ fans? Here’s a giant ‘fuck you’: the eighth and final season of HBO‘s monster hit might not air until 2019, says programming president Casey Bloys.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about the four different prequels the network is producing, Bloys dropped the bombshell news that the long-awaited (and already significantly shorter) season might not air next year as expected.
EW: “So as of now, the final season could air in 2018 and/or in 2019 depending on [the showrunners’] needs?”
Bloys: “Yeah. They have to write the episodes and figure out the production schedule. We’ll have a better sense of that once they get further into the writing.”
Bloys also confirmed that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss aren’t going to be involved in the prequels, instead working on the final season for “the next year and a half”, which gives us the 2019 timeline.
It seems fair enough: Benioff and Weiss will have been involved in ‘GoT’ and only ‘GoT’ for 12 years by the time this thing wraps up, and they just want to enjoy the prequels – or whichever one HBO ends up developing – like anyone else.
The final two seasons are already going to be heaps short compared to what we’re used to. Season 7 – airing July 16 – will feature just seven episodes, instead of the usual ten, while Season 8 will have just six.
But what they lack in run time, they’re hopefully making up in literally everything else.
“One of the hallmarks of the show has been how cinematic is it,” said Bloys. “The show has proven that TV is every bit as impressive and in many cases more so, than film. What they’re doing is monumental. When you see these battles in season 7, and what I imagine season 8 will be, it’s a big, big show. We’ve done a lot of great shows, but this one combines the complex characters we love with a huge cinematic scope. I think this is the first show to prove that can be done — and we’re the first people to pay for it.”
Photo: HBO.
