Game of Thrones Final Season Premiere Year Still Up in the Air

"It's a big season."

By Terri Schwartz

Will Game of Thrones' final season air in 2018 or be delayed until 2019? That's the big question as the HBO drama's penultimate season currently hits our airwaves, and HBO president Casey Bloys says it will remain unanswered for a while longer.

During his executive session during the 2017 summer TV Critics' Association press tour, Bloys confirmed that all the Season 8 scripts have been written, but showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are currently storyboarding them out to get a sense of how long they'll take to film.

"It's a big season," said Bloys. "They're trying to get a sense of how long it's going to take them to shoot this."

George R.R. Martin made comments years ago about how he would have loved to see the final episodes of Game of Thrones air theatrically, but Bloys seems doubtful that Season 8 will hit the big screen, despite some running times reportedly pushing an hour and a half.

"They're going to air on HBO because they're for our subscribers," said Bloys. "As long as they air on HBO, I can't imagine it [elsewhere]."

As Benioff and Weiss are still storyboarding the final season, the exact episode lengths haven't been determined. Bloys says as of now he hasn't discussed putting a max episode length on them. "I imagine they'll be longer, but I'm not sure [their exact length]," he said.

Meanwhile, HBO is still in active development on four prequel series to Game of Thrones. Bloys said none of those will be released before the end of the show has aired, and likely at least a year after.

"The number one priority in all of this is the final season of Game of Thrones," he said. "I don't want any spinoff or anything that detracts or distracts from that. That season will happen, my guess is it would be at least a year before you saw anything else. What I don't want is the attention to be drawn from the final season, which I think is going to be epic and amazing, and somehow have the distraction of a new Game of Thrones airing right after it. I think it's best to separate it, and that's what we'll do."

Game of Thrones is currently airing Season 7. Make sure to check out IGN's review of the most recent episode, "Stormborn."

Terri Schwartz is Editorial Producer at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.

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