Game of Thrones season 8 episode count confirmed, release date still up in the air
It'll be almost like a mini-season
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Your support makes all the difference.Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have long been saying they intend the final season to consist of just six episodes, and now it appears to be confirmed.
Entertainment Weekly broke the story, which seems to have developed almost familial level ties with the show (House Stark feature on the cover of this week's magazine) and is basically never wrong about it.
This will bring the total episode count to 73. The first six seasons were all 10 episodes long before the seventh dropped down to seven. The understanding is that a decreased episode count has allowed the creators to up the budget and quality on each individual episode.
Such a shortened count will make the final batch of episodes almost like a mini-season and will likely be pretty action-heavy.
There is no word on a release date yet, but summer feels likely again as season 7 was shifted to this slot to allow for more winter filming. With season 8 surely staying in Westeros' nefarious North, it would make sense if they aimed for a similar shooting schedule.
"I think have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do," HBO programming president Casey Bloys previously said. "If I could get them to do more, I would take 10 seasons, but we want to take their lead with what they could do and what the best version of the show is."
The final season will of course not be the end of the Game of Thrones universe though, with four spin-off ideas currently being developed with a view to greenlighting the best one.
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