HBO Exec Hints No 'Game of Thrones' Prequel Will Premiere Before 2020
HBO's President of Programming, Casey Bloys, has recently hinted that none of the prequels expected to be shown for "Game of Thrones" would premiere before 2020.
Now that "Game of Thrones" is down to its final season, its fans and HBO are just not ready yet to let go of Westeros. Because of this, the confirmation that there are several prequels of the show set to be released in the coming years is good news for everybody.
However, since the confirmation that at least five different storylines were being developed (with George R.R. Martin being very much involved in the process) was made, there has been no word yet from HBO whether all of these would make it to the production phase and when fans could start watching them.
While nothing is certain for these prequels yet, Bloys recently hinted that the first prequel to hit the small screen could premiere in 2020 at the earliest.
During the Television Critics Association's winter press tour, Bloys said: "There is not going to be anything in any scenario where we have any sort of prequel air for at least a year after ['Game of Thrones' season 8]."
Bloys added that he did not want to use the excitement surrounding "Game of Thrones" season 8 to set the stage for something else.
"I want it to stand as the finale of the greatest tv show of all time, I don't want to do anything that infringes on that," the HBO executive said.
Since it has been previously confirmed that the "Game of Thrones" season 8 will premiere in 2019 with likely six episodes, reports suggest that the earliest possible time for the first Westerosi prequel to premiere is in the year 2020.
Meanwhile, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bloys also commented on the prequels' scripts that are currently being developed and said these held "some exciting material."
The HBO executive added: "We have really great writers working on these; it's very exciting. But there's no timetable. Not everybody is on the same schedule, so I've seen different versions of different things that are potentially exciting. But there's no timetable about when a decision would be made about any of them."