Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham is dropping some serious hints that season eight will be delayed until 2019, but may also feature the longest-ever episodes.
The final season is potentially being pushed all the way to 2019 to hand showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and an all-star group of directors the chance to give Game of Thrones the grand finale it deserves.
Now, Ser Davos actor Liam has dropped a hint that season eight will follow its predecessor in supersizing the remaining episodes while also confirming that filming will carry on through next summer.
"[The episodes are] definitely going to be bigger and what I hear is longer," Cunningham told TV Guide. "We're filming right up until the summer.
"When you think about it, up until last season we'd have six months to do ten episodes, so we're [doing] way more than that for six episodes. So that obviously will translate into longer episodes."
In a separate Q&A with Wire, the actor indicated that the cast will gather this Sunday (October 8) to read the first three scripts and then rehearse, before starting to actually film season 8 on either October 16 or 19.
Taking his timeline of pre-production and then filming into summer 2018, it's seeming more and more likely that Game of Thrones will not be back on screens before 2019. HBO has yet to confirm a premiere date.
Cunningham's descriptions of the final season matches comments from his co-star John Bradley (aka Samwell Tarly) about the task of wrapping up the war of the Seven Kingdoms and the march of the White Walkers.
"We assembled a team of directors this year who have been in charge of some of our big episodes in the past," Bradley explained.
"Miguel [Sapochnik] and David [Nutter] have done some of the standout episodes of previous seasons. Clearly every single episode of the six you've got left in season 8 is gonna be monumental and needs somebody at the helm who's done that kind of high-stakes, high-octane direction before for us."
Earlier this week, Iain Glen suggested that pushing Game of Thrones' eighth season back an entire year is a logical move… if in fact HBO chooses to go that route in the end.
