anyone think the rumour that season 8 will start in 2019 is true

[snow is the man]

I really don't understand why it would be since it would still run for less time over all so why would it take an extra year to make. However maybe I am missing something and I was curious if anyone else thought this rumour about season 8 starting in 2019 is true

[Gaz0680]

I think it could very well be true, but 2 years will be a long time for fans to wait for final season which is only 6 episodes anyway.

It would be acceptable if the reason for the extra year wait was that they wanted to get it right and end the story as closely as possible to how Martin is going to end it and they want the final season to be a masterpiece and really well written to make up for the last few terribly written seasons. That just won't be the reason though. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

I think it may well be, although if season 8 does debut in 2019, it will probably revert back to the spring instead of summer. I think gap years between seasons is a trend we're going to be seeing for a while now - Westworld is taking one, and even smaller shows such as Stranger Things are spending over a year to prepare their next season. 

[divica]

49 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think it may well be, although if season 8 does debut in 2019, it will probably revert back to the spring instead of summer. I think gap years between seasons is a trend we're going to be seeing for a while now - Westworld is taking one, and even smaller shows such as Stranger Things are spending over a year to prepare their next season. 

I think that shows with large budgets or big casts are going to have a standard of 2 years between seasons. There are lots of examples of it nowadays... besides those you said you can add marco polo for example.

And while I undertand why the extra year might be needed (this series are almost like movies but with much more screen time) I hate the wait and hope all series that do this fail miserably and the trend is abandoned.

In regards to got, it only makes sense if the rumor about the longer eps is true... and even then the rumor I heard was end of 2018...

[The Bard of Banefort]

14 minutes ago, divica said:

I think that shows with large budgets or big casts are going to have a standard of 2 years between seasons. There are lots of examples of it nowadays... besides those you said you can add marco polo for example.

And while I undertand why the extra year might be needed (this series are almost like movies but with much more screen time) I hate the wait and hope all series that do this fail miserably and the trend is abandoned.

In regards to got, it only makes sense if the rumor about the longer eps is true... and even then the rumor I heard was end of 2018...

I'm a bit hesitant to say this, but the first two episodes of this season have seemed like an improvement from seasons five and six, so the additional time the screenwriters have to work on the script could benefit the final season in a big way. 

[Cas Stark]

31 minutes ago, divica said:

I think that shows with large budgets or big casts are going to have a standard of 2 years between seasons. There are lots of examples of it nowadays... besides those you said you can add marco polo for example.

And while I undertand why the extra year might be needed (this series are almost like movies but with much more screen time) I hate the wait and hope all series that do this fail miserably and the trend is abandoned.

In regards to got, it only makes sense if the rumor about the longer eps is true... and even then the rumor I heard was end of 2018...

In an age of streaming, expecting your audience to wait two years between seasons seems insane to me.  I thought it was a mistake for Westworld to take that long of a break, and we'll see what happens w/the audience.

GOT being basically a worldwide phenomenon, I guess they can get away with it, and certainly HBO wants to drag it out as long as possible to keep the merchandising $$ going.  But, I don't see a need for it to take two years to produce 6 episodes....also, that length of time will almost ensure that all salient points including possibly more scripts will be leaked long before the show airs.

[divica]

17 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I'm a bit hesitant to say this, but the first two episodes of this season have seemed like an improvement from seasons five and six, so the additional time the screenwriters have to work on the script could benefit the final season in a big way. 

I think a lot of things were well thought in season 5, its problem is that there were big things that just didn t work.

And while I agree that so far the dialogues and logic is much better than in season 6 the leaks for the final episodes seem awful...

[divica]

4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

In an age of streaming, expecting your audience to wait two years between seasons seems insane to me.  I thought it was a mistake for Westworld to take that long of a break, and we'll see what happens w/the audience.

GOT being basically a worldwide phenomenon, I guess they can get away with it, and certainly HBO wants to drag it out as long as possible to keep the merchandising $$ going.  But, I don't see a need for it to take two years to produce 6 episodes....also, that length of time will almost ensure that all salient points including possibly more scripts will be leaked long before the show airs.

They might also want to air a spin off before the last season... 

I can t comment on westword because to me the show is too slow and boring, but for example for marco polo I will keep watching it even if it takes 2 years per season...

If those eps all have 90 min...there was rumor about it...

[Consigliere]

I don't think it will be exactly two years (probably more like 18 months or less). That said, I hope this is not true. I'm not a fan of shows doing things like this and was very disappointed to hear that Westworld has taken this route. I also don't understand why it would need to take this long to produce 6-7 episodes even if the episodes are longer, unless HBO are doing this for no other reason than drag this out. I really hope we get the final season next year. Martin has done a superb job of jerking everyone around with the books; I don't want HBO delaying things too.

[snow is the man]

7 hours ago, Consigliere said:

I don't think it will be exactly two years (probably more like 18 months or less). That said, I hope this is not true. I'm not a fan of shows doing things like this and was very disappointed to hear that Westworld has taken this route. I also don't understand why it would need to take this long to produce 6-7 episodes even if the episodes are longer, unless HBO are doing this for no other reason than drag this out. I really hope we get the final season next year. Martin has done a superb job of jerking everyone around with the books; I don't want HBO delaying things too.

Actually it is more likely to be five episode or four if I remember correctly for season 8. Which is why I said even if they are all feature length it will be the same amount of time overall. I hope they don't do this and think it would be a mistake. People aren't great at waiting especially in the age of things happening now.

[snow is the man]

7 hours ago, divica said:

I think a lot of things were well thought in season 5, its problem is that there were big things that just didn t work.

And while I agree that so far the dialogues and logic is much better than in season 6 the leaks for the final episodes seem awful...

Part of me wonders if they didn't leak the script on purpose to throw people off. I really hope so.

[Newstar]

It's not really a rumour; the 2019 info comes from interviews with the showrunners and HBO via Entertainment Weekly. 

Latest word from HBO head of programming is that they haven't decided whether to release in 2018 or 2019 yet. A lot will depend on the production schedule, one would think.

The wait wouldn't really be two years. Worst case scenario, it would be a year and a half. The audience had to wait longer than usual for Season 7 this year, and ratings are as high as ever, so I'm sure the audience will turn out for Season 8 in droves as usual.

[Lucius Lovejoy]

9 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Martin has done a superb job of jerking everyone around with the books; I don't want HBO delaying things too.

I still have a small hope that there will be more books (I don't believe any of the next two, cough, cough excuse me THREE books will ever be released)  and I believe if GRRM has actually written anything since 2011 it would be released after the show, so having the show end in June 2019 instead of October or November 2018 blows.  I don't think HBO wants live audiences competing with NFL sunday night football in the USA though so waiting until February 2019 or later may make sense to them.

 

[Consigliere]

12 hours ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

I don't think HBO wants live audiences competing with NFL sunday night football in the USA though so waiting until February 2019 or later may make sense to them.

I don't think that HBO is too concerned about competing with the NFL since their business model is subscription based (as well as selling licensing to their programming outside the United States) rather than based on advertising revenue. For HBO, live viewership is much less important than it is for say AMC who rely heavily on advertising revenue. This gives me some hope for a 2018 or, at the latest, an early 2019 release.

Quote

I still have a small hope that there will be more books (I don't believe any of the next two, cough, cough excuse me THREE books will ever be released)  and I believe if GRRM has actually written anything since 2011 it would be released after the show, so having the show end in June 2019 instead of October or November 2018 blows.

I think we will see TWoW...eventually. Also don't think that Martin is actually holding things back until the show is finished. Seems to me that he has hit a wall and is really struggling given that he has been "months away" for two years now. Book 7 is looking more and more like a pipe-dream and I'm highly skeptical now that it will even be the last book. The chances of the series being completed in book form looks very bleak indeed. Luckily, we have GoT that is guaranteed to provide us an ending by 2019 at the latest.

[pinoyathletics]

I think Game of Thrones will launch a movie franchise after the TV Series. Hopefully trying to fix up a lot of the blunders the TV Series made.

[Newstar]

The HBO head of programming has said that the Season 8 episodes will be longer but he doesn't know how much longer. He even said that it was possible that there would be two-hour episodes. If we assume that Season 8 episodes will average 80 minutes apiece, then 6 x 80 = 480 minutes, whereas in a "standard" season 10 episodes x 55 minutes = 550 minutes. Of course, Season 7 took as long to film as previous seasons (six months) even though the season will only clock in at about 420 minutes overall, and I'm guessing Season 8 will have even more epic battles and such. However, suppose it's even 90 minutes per episode, then the season will clock in at the same minute count as a regular season (give or take 10 minutes), but with all these enormous battle sequences and extremely complicated VFX bits that earlier seasons lacked. 

We also heard a few weeks ago that GOT was scouting locations to film in March or April of 2018. Season 7 filming finished by the end of February 2017, so we're looking at least at an additional month or two months of filming, assuming GOT starts filming Season 8 at the same of year as they started filming Season 7 (September 2017). 

There also seems to be a four-five month lag between the end of filming and the airing of the season, probably to allow for VFX and editing, which apparently can be ongoing until right before the new season premieres. Season 7 filming ended at the end of February, with a premiere date in mid-July, so about a 4.5 month lag. However, we can anticipate that Season 8 will have heavy VFX and may require even more time, so a 4.5 month lag will likely be extended.

So assuming filming begins in September 2017 and runs until the end of April 2018 (and there could easily be more filming), and tacking on five-six months of VFX (and there could easily be more VFX), at the very earliest we're looking at November or December 2018.

On top of that, while GOT may be ready to roll out in November or December 2018, HBO may want to wait until the new year to premiere the final season. I think February 2019 is probably the earliest realistic release date, but again, that's only about a year and a half off the end of Season 7.

...If it's any consolation, given what happened with Season 7, all major plot points of Season 8 will be leaked long, long before 2019. For Season 7, this happened less than a month into filming. And of course there will be the usual leaks from fans snapping photos of exterior shoots.

[Commander Jon Snow]

I don't know if we'll get a full leak like we did with Lads this time. This was really something special

That said, as much as I enjoyed knowing what will happen, I am going to avoid all spoilers for the final season. Will go dark and avoid all ASOIAF/GOT related forums and unfollow all the accounts on social media. I'd like to watch the ending unspoiled. All of my friends have no idea what is happening this season so it shouldn't be hard to stay cold. 

[Newstar]

36 minutes ago, Commander Jon Snow said:

I don't know if we'll get a full leak like we did with Lads this time. This was really something special

That said, as much as I enjoyed knowing what will happen, I am going to avoid all spoilers for the final season. Will go dark and avoid all ASOIAF/GOT related forums and unfollow all the accounts on social media. I'd like to watch the ending unspoiled. All of my friends have no idea what is happening this season so it shouldn't be hard to stay cold. 

Sounds like a plan. The leaked stuff made it to non-ASOIAF-specific fansites and even the mainstream media in some instances, though, so I would advise you or anyone else who want to avoid spoilers to be extra careful starting in September or so.

[Lucius Lovejoy]

10 hours ago, Consigliere said:

I don't think that HBO is too concerned about competing with the NFL since their business model is subscription based (as well as selling licensing to their programming outside the United States) rather than based on advertising revenue. For HBO, live viewership is much less important than it is for say AMC who rely heavily on advertising revenue. This gives me some hope for a 2018 or, at the latest, an early 2019 release.

I think we will see TWoW...eventually. Also don't think that Martin is actually holding things back until the show is finished. Seems to me that he has hit a wall and is really struggling given that he has been "months away" for two years now. Book 7 is looking more and more like a pipe-dream and I'm highly skeptical now that it will even be the last book. The chances of the series being completed in book form looks very bleak indeed. Luckily, we have GoT that is guaranteed to provide us an ending by 2019 at the latest.

Great point about the subscription revenues, though I was thinking more in terms of dominating the national conversation, news, and headlines.  Also as @Newstar pointed out typically TV will avoid debuting prestige material during the lead up to Christmas/New Years.

As for the books, I can only imagine how demoralizing it is to see your life's work get co-opted by tv, fan fic, internet forums (like this one) where people have figured out some of your great mysteries.  Also it must be so tiring to tell the same story for 20+ years and not be able to change anything he regrets due to the way he built it up.  Unless you count Aegon in ADWD as a radical change he added from boredom.

[snow is the man]

7 hours ago, Newstar said:

Sounds like a plan. The leaked stuff made it to non-ASOIAF-specific fansites and even the mainstream media in some instances, though, so I would advise you or anyone else who want to avoid spoilers to be extra careful starting in September or so.

part of me wonders if they leaked some things on purpose so they could change parts and suprise everyone.