As fans of ‘Game of Thrones’ prepare for the fourth season debut next month, one has to wonder how much longer the show will last. In this day and age, a TV show can be taken away unexpectedly at any time and before it’s prime. And since the next season is set to cover the second half of the third book in George R.R. Martin’s novel series, the show is nearly caught up with the books that are available right now. So where does that leave showrunners David Benioff and D.B Weiss in terms of planning? ‘Vanity Fair’ has the answer.
In the latest issue of the publication, which features a cover story on HBO’s acclaimed fantasy drama with pictures by Annie Leibovitz, Benioff shed some light about the future of ‘Game of Thrones’. After sharing that the current plan for the show is to end it after seven or eight seasons (network permitting), Benioff said that they don’t plan on dragging out the show longer than they have to so as to uphold the integrity of the story:
“It doesn’t just keep on going because it can. I think the desire to milk more out of it is what would eventually kill it, if we gave in to that.”
The co-creator of one of the most popular shows on television goes on to say that he and his partner met with Martin to discuss what’s to come for the Starks, the Lannisters, and the rest of Westeros just in case the show actually does catch up with the books or if for some reason the books cannot be completed:
“Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with him [Martin] and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character.”
Speaking of catching up to the novels, Martin hopes to stay ahead of the TV duo by working hard to complete the final two books of the planned seven in a timelier manner:
“It doesn’t just keep on going because it can. I think the desire to milk more out of it is what would eventually kill it, if we gave in to that.”
Finally, to go along with this information from the Vanity Fair article, here’s a behind the scenes video from the cover shoot featuring Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and more:
What do you think about ‘Game of Thrones’ lasting for seven or eight seasons? Do you think that the network will pull the show before it reaches to that point? And do you think that George R.R. Martin will manage to stay ahead of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as they continue to catch up to him in the story? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Coming Soon
