Now that “The Dragon and the Wolf” has had its time in the limelight – all 80 minutes of it, to be exact – Game of Thrones has quietly stepped back into the shadows ahead of its eighth and final season.
Comprised of only six episodes in total, it’s understood HBO plans to reunite Westeros’ power players in October, when filming will continue long into 2018. It’s a start date that has invariably called season 8’s release window into question, even when factoring in the truncated episode count. To set the record straight – or, at the very least, gather some intel on the network’s current target – The Hollywood Reporter caught up with HBO programming president Casey Bloys, who revealed that it’s really a question of how much time Game of Thrones season 8 needs for shooting and special effects.
Our production people are trying to figure out a timeline for the shoot and how much time the special effects take. The shooting is complicated enough – on different continents, with all the technical aspects – and the special effects are a whole other production period that we’re trying to figure out. That is a big factor in all of this.
Season 8 is still in a state of flux, then, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider that filming is yet to get underway in earnest. Buoyed by the runaway success of Game of Thrones season 7, which still managed to pull in record viewing figures in spite of those leaked episodes, it’s clear HBO will want its fantasy flagship to go out on a high before launching those planned successor series. But whether that grand finale arrives in 2018 or 2019 is yet to be determined.
The penultimate season is now in our rear-view mirror – for those in the U.S., at least – which means Game of Thrones won’t be back until the eighth and final season. Exactly when that six-parter arrives is up for debate, but these latest comments from Bloys lead us to believe that HBO will hold fire and release Thrones‘ last hurrah in 2019 – lest they rush out a half-baked series finale and spoil what’s been one of the most gripping TV sagas of the modern era.
We will, as always, bring you all the latest as this story develops, but you can leave your own thoughts in the comments section for the time being.
