Game of Thrones expected to run for three more seasons

PanARMENIAN.Net - It was expected that Game of Thrones would run for seven seasons, to match the seven expected novels by George RR Martin. But HBO executive Michael Lombardo has said that he hopes for an eighth, The Telegraph reports.

The popular fantasy show is based on the novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. Although fans are still waiting for the sixth instalment to be written, filming is currently underway for the sixth season in Northern Ireland.

The program’s showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have regularly claimed that there will be seven seasons but now the possibility for an eighth has been opened up.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association’s press tour on Thursday, July 30, Lombardo said: “Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation. The question is: how much beyond seven are we going to do? Obviously we’re shooting six now, hopefully discussing seven. [Benioff and Weiss] feel like there’s two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

He added that he was open to the idea of a prequel season, if the showrunners wanted to do it. “It really would depend fully on what they wanted to do,” he said. “There’s enormous storytelling to be mined in a prequel, if George and Dan and David decide they want to tackle that. At this point, all the focus is on the next few years of the show. We haven’t had any conversations about that at this point.”

He was also asked whether Jon Snow, who was killed off at the end of season five, was really dead. Even though Kit Harington, who plays Snow, has been spotted in Belfast, Lombardo stuck to the same line as the rest of the Game of Thrones team. "Everything I've seen, heard and read, Jon Snow is dead," he said, according to the Telegraph.