If Game of Thrones has a future on HBO beyond season 8, showrunners, executive producers and writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss won’t be a part of it.
News hails from last night’s Emmys ceremony, where HBO’s fantasy flagship scooped up a total of 12 accolades including the coveted gong for Outstanding Drama Series. Few would argue that Game of Thrones was deserving of such recognition, particularly after the stellar sixth season neatly aligned the series for a truly epic, two-part finale comprised of two shorter seasons. As things stand, that places GoT on course for its final bow sometime in 2018, and though there has been some chatter of a spinoff – much of which stemmed from George R.R. Martin himself – Benioff and Weiss have now ruled themselves out of such nascent plans.
Per TVLine:
“You might want to ask George about that,” Benioff said, gesturing to Thrones book author George RR Martin, who attended the awards show with them. “It’s a great world that George created. It’s a very rich world. I’m sure there will be other series set in Westeros. But for us, this is it.”
Last night may go down as an all-round success for Game of Thrones, but getting there is by no means easy. The production schedule for HBO’s flagship, for example, is notorious for its scale, spanning the entire year with shoots across Ireland, Morocco, Iceland and other parts of Europe. Indeed, that’s part and parcel of why season 7 will premiere a little later than usual, as Benioff and Weiss slowly begin to approach their grand finale.
Expect Game of Thrones to return in the summer of 2017 with a truncated seventh season. It’ll tee up the show’s 2018 swan song, but what do you make of these spinoff reports?
