You May Have To Wait A Couple Years For The Final Season Of 'Game Of Thrones'

There are six weeks, one day, 11 hours, and 17 minutes until the premiere of Game of Thrones Season 7. It has felt like an eternity since we last had new episodes of Game of Thrones. Not to sour on the excitement for Season 7, but it sounds like we may not be graced with the epic final season of GoT for a couple of years.

HBO programming president Casey Bloys told Entertainment Weekly that Season 8 of Game of Thrones may not hit TV screens until 2019. The EW interviewer asked Bloys, “So as of now, the final season could air in 2018 and / or in 2019 depending on their needs?” To which Bloys responded, “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.”

Waiting until 2019 for the last season of GoT sounds more torturous than a Ramsey Bolton dog kennel. However, the extra time might actually be a blessing for the finale to one of the greatest television series of all-time. Bloys has given showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss the time to make sure that the final season is spectacular and cinematic.

“One of the hallmarks of the show has been how cinematic is it,” Bloys said. “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.”

So it seems that they are saying that don’t look at the last six episodes to be six TV episodes, but rather six connecting movies with Hollywood-like production values.

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As for the spinoff shows that have been talked about, the HBO executive explained why Benioff and Weiss were not involved with those four potential projects.

“By the time the final season airs, Dan and David will have been at this for 12 years. Which is an amazing fact. They didn’t go and do movies in between seasons, they didn’t set anything else up, they put everything — and are putting everything — into this show. They came into HBO with an idea for a show with a beginning, middle, and end, and they want to see it through. In conversations with them, they feel if their name is on the prequels — even in a passive way — it conveys some sort of expectation or responsibility. They want to enjoy the show as fans and don’t want to worry about the scripts or production issues. We were hoping to have their names on it out of respect for them, but we understand why they don’t want that.”

Bloy also emphasized that just because HBO is exploring four different Game of Thrones spinoff possibilities, that doesn’t mean that all four are going to be made into shows.

“In the press at large, everybody said, ‘there are four spinoffs’ and they assume that means each one is happening and we’re going to have a new Game of Thrones show per quarter. That’s not what’s going on. The idea is not to do four shows. The bar set by [Benioff and Weiss] is so high that my hope is to get one show that lives up to it. Also, this is a long-term plan. Our No. 1 goal is the seventh season this summer and getting the eighth season written and aired.”

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The penultimate season of Game of Thrones debuts on July, 16 with the premiere episode running 59 minutes.

The great war is here. #GoTS7 premieres 7.16. pic.twitter.com/1Jna10kNuQ

— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) March 9, 2017

So that means that you had better enjoy the heck out of the seven episodes of Season 7 of Game of Thrones because it could be a very long time until you get Season 8.