Game of Thrones fans are desperate for the next instalment from Westeros, but they still have a long wait ahead of them.
It has now been over a year since we were treated to the last episode of season seven and its dramatic wall-crumbling ending.
It may only seem like yesterday that we saw Jon and Daenerys get close on a boat and Littlefinger get into a little trouble at Winterfell, but the seventh episode of season seven originally aired way back on 27 August of last year.
So when can we expect the eighth and final season of George R R Martin’s creation?
An official release date is yet to be confirmed, but it now looks like we will have to wait till at least May 2019 to see any new Game of Thrones.
HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys narrowed the show’s release window at the Television Critics Asssociation’s press tour (via Entertainment Weekly) in July.
‘We’re going to be toiling away on season eight until May of 2019, so it’s eight or nine months away,’ Bloys explained.
‘Here’s the one thing I can assure you: Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff] [GoT showrunners] were not sitting around on a beach waiting to go back to work. They’re perfectionists and this is the soonest it can come back at a level of quality that they are comfortable with.’
It is disappointing for fans who hoped the show would return in January, and definitely no later than the usual April start date, but May now seems to be the earliest possible return for the show.
But we will all just have to sit back and wait, busying ourselves with ever more outlandish fan theories about giant squid and the Night King’s real identity.
There is even a tiny amount of footage already available in HBO’s teaser video below, so make of that what you will, it might be all you get for some time.
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