We’ve talked at length about the potential end game for Game of Thrones on HBO. We know it’ll close out before the end of the book series and we know that the showrunners have an ending in sight. Now that latter point is confirmed with a semi-firm date for the close of the series.
According to Variety, HBO’s Michael Lombardo revealed that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have pegged the end of the series a lot closer to season six than we expected:
“‘Seven seasons and out’ has never been the conversation,” Lombardo told reporters during HBO’s presentation at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour on Thursday. “The question is, how much beyond the seventh season are we going to do?”
According to Lombardo, “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are “feeling like there’s probably two more years after [season] six,” noting that he would “love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”
So that would mean eight seasons (and a movie?) for the super popular HBO series. That seems pretty reasonable given the previous reports and it’s also clear that winter has to eventually come to the show after the events of season five. There’s a lot of dead bodies piling up and you can’t keep doing that without being close to some breaking point.
But is that the end for the world of Westeros on HBO? Lombardo hopes not and actually could see the series live on past the point where Weiss and Benioff see the story of the main show finishing up via a prequel (if they wanted to go that route):
“We started this journey with David and Dan. It’s their vision. Would I love the show to go 10 years as both a fan and a network executive? Absolutely. We’ll have an honest conversation that explores all possible avenues … What I’m not going to do is have a show continue past where the creators believe where they feel they’ve finished with the story,” he said earlier this year.
When asked about the possibility of a prequel or spinoff of some kind at TCA, Lombardo admitted, “I would be open to anything David and Dan want to do … there’s enormous storytelling to be mined in a prequel.” He added that there have been no conversations about an offshoot for “Thrones” yet, since “the focus is on figuring out the next few years of this show.”
On a personal level, I always find myself a lot more interested in the stuff that has come before the show itself. I’m excited for the big end point and where everything is leading, but it’s all because of the stuff we’ve been teased about from the prior events. The Long Night, the dragons, etc. It’s a ripe territory that I could see making for some interesting visuals. That doesn’t mean it’d be good TV, though.
No matter, it’s getting to be time to sop up these Game of Thrones episodes like a breakfast biscuit with gravy. Savor them and enjoy the ride because the end is coming and it might get a little chilly sooner than expected.
