Game of Thrones' final season may be pushed back to 2019

Game of Thrones fans are eagerly awaiting the start of season seven of HBO's hit drama on July 16th, however they may need to savor their time in Westeros this year for much longer than usual. That's because the network has hinted that season eight may not be ready to air until 2019, skipping 2018 entirely. This comes after last summer's news that season seven would only consist of seven episodes, while the final season is now expected be only six episodes.

In a new Entertainment Weekly interview, HBO's programming president Casey Bloys made mention that Game of Thrones season eight may not be ready until 2019. The topic came up when discussing showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss and how they aren't involved with the recently discussed spinoffs that are being worked on.

To be clear, Bloys has only said that delaying season eight is a possibility, not a decision that's already been made. When the interviewer explicitly asked about the final season airing in 2018 or 2019, the exec said: "[Benioff and Weiss] 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."

This basically means the showrunners are able to take their time, if needed, and while that's certainly frustrating for viewers, Bloys explains that their focus is solely on the quality of the series, not rushing through in order to debut new spinoffs. HBO has decided that it won't begin considering which spinoffs it will move ahead with until the final season is completed.

"Making Game of Thrones as good as possible is the No. 1 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," Bloys concluded.

SOURCE Entertainment Weekly