The last seven seasons of Game of Thrones have been a pretty wild ride, and though the latest run had its detractors, most agreed it upped the ante on the action stakes as well as moving the plot significantly towards its conclusion.
Said conclusion will take place in the eighth and final season of the show, but up until today, we only knew that it would air at some point in 2019. Now, thanks to a speech at the HBO Television Critic’s Association by Casey Bloys, we can narrow that time frame down by precisely 50%. Yup, that’s right, the next season will air in the first half of 2019.
I agree with you that this isn’t exactly narrowing it down that much, but at least we know we’re going to get it sooner rather than later. Plus, examining the previous premiere dates of the past seasons indicates that HBO likes to go for a slot around April, with season 3 premiering as early as March 31st, 2013 and season 6 on April 24th, 2016. Of course, the worrying outlier is season 7, which didn’t hit screens until July 16th, 2017. That indicates to me that Q2 2019 is the most likely air date by a long way, with my bet that it’ll land sometime in late April.
One consolation fans can take is that the series is at least on production schedule. The shoot recently wrapped, with HBO moving on to the substantial post-production process necessary for bringing Westeros to life. You can assume that they’re going to go out with a bang in the final season, too, so expect a higher proportion of complex effects shots (mainly involving CGI dragons and lots of angry bearded men chopping bits off each other), which should take most of the next year to complete.
Doubtless, HBO will be beginning their hype campaign for Game of Thrones sometime in the Fall, so expect to see some kind of teaser trailer around then. In the meantime, stay tuned to We Got This Covered for all the latest leaks, news and rumors on the show.
