More details about the final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ were revealed on Wednesday along with some information about the upcoming prequel on HBO…
The final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ will debut during the first half of 2019 but there’s still no specific date for when the popular HBO series will debut.
That’s coming directly from HBO programming president Casey Bloys, who confirmed the eighth and final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ is currently in post production but won’t debut until sometime before June 2019.
“First half,” Bloys said when asked when the final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ would air next year when speaking to reporters at the Television Critics Association.
It’s still a vague timeline but obviously HBO is doing everything possible to ensure the final six episodes of ‘Game of Thrones’ will satisfy a rabid fanbase that have turned the show into the most watched series in the network’s history.
“I think it’s epic,” Bloys told EW in a separate interview when speaking about ‘Game of Thrones’ final season. “I think fans are going to love it. I think it’s a fitting way for one of the greatest shows in the history of television to go out and that people are going to be very happy. There’s going to be a lot of conversation.”
Bloys added that he expects the first trailer for the final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ to debut sometime later this year but even that’s not set in stone just yet.
As far as building on the success of ‘Game of Thrones’ with a new prequel series, Bloys seems to be excited about the show that’s currently being put together by show runner Jane Goldman and author George R.R. Martin.
While details about the series are still under wraps, Martin has teased that the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel will go way back in time — about 8,000 years to be exact — to a period of history known as ‘The Long Night’, which is when the White Walkers first appeared and invaded Westeros.
Bloys wasn’t willing to divulge much about the series except to add that it will be the only prequel in production at this time after HBO originally optioned several different screenwriters to take a stab at creating a new ‘Game of Thrones’ premise.
Bloys added that Goldman’s take on her particular prequel made all the difference considering how far removed the story will be from what just unfolded on ‘Game of Thrones’.
“The story’s time period, another 8,000 years before [the events in ‘Game of Thrones’], it’s far enough away so it feels like a different story, a different world, because it is — the kingdoms do not exist at this point,” Bloys said. “So it felt distinct. We’re not trying to do Game of Thrones Part II. No one is going to duplicate what [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] did.
“By setting it when we did, there’s a lot going on, a lot of dynamics that are related to Game of Thrones, but it’s different enough with its time period and characters its duplicative.”
As far as production on the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel, Bloys shot down a rumored story that said the show would start filming later this year.
No casting has been done for the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel at this stage so Bloys said a production date on the series wouldn’t be until at least early 2019.
“I don’t know where that report came from, we’re hoping to go into production in early ’19,” Bloys said.
Keep an eye out for more details on the final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ as production starts to wrap up later this year with the show expected to return in 2019.
