We’re all desperately trying to guess what’s going to happen in Game of Thrones‘ final season, but it looks like no one – save maybe the showrunners – are going to know for certain until the final episode has aired.
HBO‘s president of programming has revealed that they’re going to shoot multiple endings, in an effort to avoid the show’s eighth and final season being spoiled by leaks.
“I know in ‘Game of Thrones’, the ending, they going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really knows what happens,” said HBO’s Casey Bloys in The Morning Call.
“You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”
It obviously comes off the back of a season with a leakier plot than a decade-old bucket. Between the HBO hack and the awkward early screening fuck-up (not to mention paparazzi shots showing characters returning from the forgotten, i.e. Gendry), a good portion of the plot was known by fans before the episodes ever ~officially~ aired.
HBO is clearly hoping this will fix that. It’s not the first time shows have filmed different endings to keep the ultimate finale a secret (The Morning Call points out that Breaking Bad and The Sopranos also did this), but Game of Thrones is one of the most expensive shows in history. It’s painful to think how much the network is spending in the name of secrecy.
It also paves the way for bulk theories about what the alternative endings are actually going to entail. Will key cast members shoot a death scene that doesn’t actually happen? Will the White Walkers win in one version, and the living in another? WILL JON AND DAENERYS HAVE THE HAPPY ENDING WE ALL WANT ONLY FOR HBO TO RIP IT CRUELLY AWAY?
And most importantly, will we ever get to see these alternate endings? Givvus or else, tbh.
