Game of Thrones fans already had a longer wait than usual before the seventh season drops, but the final season—and any of those potential prequel series—might arrive later than we originally expected.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, HBO programming president Casey Bloys confirmed that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will not be involved with any of the prequel spinoffs in the works being put together by five different writers. Bloys cited that Benioff and Weiss, who will be spending the “next year and a half” working on Game of Thrones’ final season, didn’t want to give those potential shows some kind of expectation with their names attached to it.
But in the midst of explaining why Benioff and Weiss wouldn’t take part in those shows, Bloys also revealed that we might not get more Game of Thrones until 2019. It all depends on how much time Benioff and Weiss would need—and HBO is happy to give it to them.
So as of now, the final season could air in 2018 and/or in 2019 depending on their needs?
Yeah. They have to write the episodes and figure out the production schedule. We’ll have a better sense of that once they get further into the writing.
The spinoffs in the works, at least those that come to fruition, would be pushed back even further until after Game of Thrones ends. It’s not like any of them are close to being greenlit, and at this stage Bloys is open to just about anything, whether they ultimately go forward as regular series or something like an anthology series.
But the world of Westeros and the thousands of years of history Martin created has allowed HBO to explore all of those possibilities at once (except for a few Martin has debunked) to deliver a worthy prequel series to fans.
“The idea is not to do four shows,” Bloys said. “The bar set by [Benioff and Weiss] is so high that my hope is to get one show that lives up to it. Also, this is a long-term plan. Our No. 1 goal is the seventh season this summer and getting the eighth season written and aired.”
You can read Bloys’ interview in its entirety at Entertainment Weekly.