It was announced last month that HBO is considering four (no, five!) different Game of Thrones prequels, because a) people like Game of Thrones, and b) HBO really likes making money. That, however, doesn’t mean the network’s future Sunday night block will be Dunk and Egg followed by The Khaleesi Files.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, HBO programming president Casey Bloys was quick to temper expectations for the potential prequels. Right now, he’s only focusing on seasons seven and eight of Game of Thrones, and “if any of these scripts come to pass, you’re not going to see anything air anytime close to the season eight finale.” Bloys added, “Making Game of Thrones as good as possible is the number one goal, and then we’ll see about these scripts. You’re not going to see a situation where the next show in the Thrones universe launches off the back of this one. The show that [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] have created will get its proper send off first. We wouldn’t want to take away from that in any way.”
So, Bronn won’t move to Seattle in a season eight backdoor pilot? Got it.
As for when we might actually see season eight, that’s still unclear. “They have to write the episodes and figure out the production schedule,” Bloys said. “We’ll have a better sense of that once they get further into the writing.” The wait between season six and seven has already been the longest in the show’s history — season six finale: June 26, 2016; season seven premiere: July 16, 2017 — and the most torturous. Maybe for the still-unknown season eight premiere date, the ice can just be blown up instead of slowly melted.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
