Game Of Thrones' Showrunners Considered Releasing Season 8 As Three Movies

The wait for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones is almost too much to handle. A new episode of the series hasn't been seen since August 2017 and there's still plenty of time to wait as Season 8 won't arrive until sometime in 2019. However, in a newly-released interview with showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, it's revealed that a final season wasn't always in the cards. Instead, they considered releasing three theatrical films to wrap up the series.

A new Entertainment Weekly cover story that dives deep into the final season of the HBO series features a previously unreleased interview with the duo that took place during filming of Season 3 back in 2012, in which they discuss their plan for the finale at the time. Knowing the epic battle the show planned to feature in its final season, neither Weiss or Benioff believed HBO's TV budgets would be able to handle the cost. "We have a very generous budget from HBO, but we know what's coming down the line and, ultimately, it's not generous enough," Benioff said at the time.

That's when the idea of converting the final episodes into three theatrical films to tell the end of the Game of Thrones story occurred to them. "It's what we're working towards in a perfect world," Weiss explained. "We end up with an epic fantasy story but with the level of familiarity and investment in the characters that are normally impossible in a two-hour movie."

If they shot them as films, rather than episodes of TV, the showrunners believed they'd have access to the time and money they needed to make the final season everything they knew it had to be for fans. Of course, there was one major force that disagreed with them: HBO. The network was less interested in releasing movies than serving its customer base, meaning Game of Thrones was destined to end where it began--on TV.

However, according to EW, executives at HBO assured Weiss and Benioff they would get everything they needed to craft their ending. And, in the end, the network came through with its end of the bargain. With a price tag of $15 million on each of Season 8's episodes and nearly two years to complete them, the showrunners are happy with the end product. "They put their money where their mouths are--literally stuffed their mouth full of million-dollar bills, which don’t exist anymore," Weiss joked.

Now, with filming wrapped on the final season, fans are eagerly awaiting the show's return. Game of Thrones will return in 2019 for its final season. Still, while we're learning the first details about the last episodes of the series, fans should be prepared for an ending that may not be as satisfying as they are hoping for. That should be fine, though, as the Game of Thrones universe isn't slowing down. HBO has a prequel series in the works, starring Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse. It's titled The Long Night. Meanwhile, we all continue to wait for the day that George R.R. Martin, the writer of the novels Game of Thrones is based on, finishes his series.