Fans of the HBO fantasy show Game of Thrones were left rapturous with Monday night’s season six finale. It rather neatly wrapped up a season of foundation laying and set ups with the kind of ruthless loose-end tying and efficient dispatching of many sideline characters the show is known for. But those fans may be less enthused to learn that the show’s producers have now confirmed there are maximum 15 episodes left before the fate of who’ll finally take the Iron Throne is determined.
In an interview with Deadline about the shocking finale, David Benioff revealed that the show is likely to finish at the end of two more seasons. “From pretty close to the beginning, we talked about doing this in 70-75 hours, and that’s what we’ll end up with. Call it 73 for now.”
After more than 60 hours of television engrossed in the backstabbing and very literal backstabbing, Benioff makes a justifiable case for why Thrones fans should be happy that the series isn’t going to drag its heels on figuring out its grand finale. [Spoiler warning for details of GoT Season six]
“We’re trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end,” Benioff said. “As Dan [Weiss, the show’s other executive producer] said, we’ve known the end for quite some time and we’re hurtling towards it. Those last images from the show that aired last night showed that. Daenerys is finally coming back to Westeros; Jon Snow is king of the North and Cersei is sitting on the Iron Throne. And we know the Night King is up there, waiting for all of them. The pieces are on the board now. Some of the pieces have been removed from the board and we are heading toward the end game.
“The thing that has excited us from the beginning, back to the way we pitched it to HBO is, it’s not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it’s trying to figure out new story lines. We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it. We wanted to do something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story,” Benioff added.
“We’re definitely heading into that end game now.”
