WHAT WOULD YOU WANT IN A ‘GOT’ PREQUEL?
Filming for the final season of “Game of Thrones” (“GOT”) is supposed to start this month. Watchers on the Wall, a website dedicated to anything “GOT,” has yet to report any actor sightings. But here is a question-and-answer article about “GOT” and those prequel series from Entertainment Weekly. Answers were provided by HBO.
When do we get more “Game of Thrones?”
Well, see, straight away you’re asking something we can’t definitively answer. Normally “GOT” returns every year. Production starts in October. There is no announced air date. But “GOT” will either return in the second half of 2018 or in 2019. The eighth and final season will definitely air before any prequel series.
But if you had to bet?
Umm … I’d guess 2019. But again, until HBO announces a date, that’s just speculation.
How many episodes are in the final season?
Six... And there are some very cool Emmy-winning directors involved—Miguel Sapochnik (“Hardhome” and “Battles of the Bastards”) and David Nutter (“The Rains of Castamere”) are directing multiple episodes. Plus, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are directing the finale.
Will the episodes be supersized then?
Given that the last two seasons broke records for longest “GOT” episodes ever, it’s probably safe to assume Season 8 will have some rather lengthy episodes as well. There are rumors this is the case. Nothing has been confirmed yet though.
Why do we have to wait long if the show is making fewer episodes?
Fewer episodes, but they’re likely to be among the most challenging the show has ever produced. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have said they plan to spend a year and a half making the final season and previously stated that they’re committed to “GOT” concluding on a very high note.
The Great War between humanity and the Army of the Dead has been teased since the show’s very first scene. So the “GOT” team wants to spend time on the season to get it right and deliver an epic finish (and will spend an estimated $15 million per episode in the process). Beyond that, many other factors go into scheduling TV shows—for instance, since the recently aired Season 7 will compete in next year’s Emmys, HBO would never air “GOT‘s” final season until the eligibility period begins for the following year’s Emmys.
So Game of Thrones is getting a bunch of spinoffs?
A “spin-off ” is when a character from an existing show is spun off into their own series after the original series ends — like, say, Sellsword: The Further Adventures of Bronn. Which might be rad. But HBO isn’t doing that. The network is developing five prequel series and all of them are set before the events in “GOT.”