'Game of Thrones': Here's how many seasons we're getting
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Molly Driscoll Staff writer
Fans may be getting more seasons of the HBO fantasy drama 鈥淕ame of Thrones鈥� then they expected.
While 鈥淭hrones鈥� creator David Benioff stated in the past that he and co-creator D.B. Weiss were planning on seven seasons of the show (the drama just concluded its fifth), HBO programming president Michael Lombardo there could be more episodes than that.聽
鈥淪even-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation,鈥� Mr. Lombardo said. 鈥淭he question is: How much聽beyond聽seven are we going to do? Obviously we鈥檙e shooting six now, hopefully discussing seven.聽[Benioff and Weiss]聽feel like there鈥檚 two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e looking at right now.鈥澛�
Benioff in the past of the show running seven seasons, 鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to go seven seasons, which is the plan鈥� Once we got to the point where we felt like we鈥檙e going to be able to tell this tale to its conclusion, that became [an even clearer] goal. Seven gods, seven kingdoms, seven seasons. It feels right to us.鈥� (There are seven kingdoms in the show's setting and a popular religion focuses on seven deities.)
What鈥檚 interesting to fans is what this means for the show鈥檚 story. The book series on which 鈥淭hrones鈥� is based, George R.R. Martin鈥檚 鈥淎 Song of Ice and Fire,鈥� currently consists of five books and Martin has said that he鈥檚 planning on two more, 鈥淭he Winds of Winter鈥� and 鈥淎 Dream of Spring.鈥� The most recent, 鈥淎 Dance with Dragons,鈥� was released in 2011.
But book fans know that the most recent season of the show brought many plotlines up to where they are in Martin鈥檚 books and, in some cases, presumably beyond. Yet the show hasn鈥檛 stopped 鈥� the sixth season of 鈥淭hrones鈥� is currently in production. Some may be wondering where the extra material for an eighth season would come from, but the show hasn鈥檛 taken a strict one-season-consists-of-one-book approach. The most recent season combined elements from Martin鈥檚 books 鈥淎 Feast for Crows鈥� and 鈥淒ragons鈥� as well as some new plotlines (and also made important changes from the books, like giving teenager Sansa Stark a new and controversial story).聽
There have also been elements of the books that the show has not yet adapted. Perhaps those plotlines could be moved up in the story of the TV show so as to give showrunners extra material.
The sixth season of "Thrones" will, if it follows the pattern of previous season debuts, arrive sometime next spring.
