HBO and George R.R. Martin are still very hard at work on four Game of Thrones spin-offs. Just don't expect to see any of them in the near future.
Earlier in the year, it was announced that Martin was collaborating with four different TV writers to develop potential prequels that would conceivably keep the larger Game of Thrones universe on HBO for years to come.
HBO's programming president Casey Bloys had an update on these spin-offs at the TCA press tour on Wednesday, as he laid out the timeline for the premiere of any potential "successor show".
"The number-one priority in all of this is the final season of Game of Thrones," he told reporters. "I don't want to do anything with a spin-off or anything that detracts or distracts from that.
"That [final] season will happen and my guess is it would be at least a year before you saw anything else.
"What I don't want is the attention to be drawn from the final season, which I think is going to be epic and amazing and somehow have the distraction of a new Game of Thrones airing right after that. It's best to separate it and that's what we'll do."
Bloys added that the jury is still out on whether Game of Thrones will end next year as originally planned or be pushed into 2019 — the latter being a scenario that would presumably push any spin-off into 2020, at least.
Bloys also reiterated that although HBO is actively developing four spin-offs at the moment, the network doesn't actually intend to commission all of them to series.
"We'll be lucky to get one that hits," he acknowledged. "We're hopeful and we'll see."
Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke have both ruled themselves out of reprising their roles in any spin-off — but it's unlikely they'd be asked anyway since Martin's projects are all set before the events of Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones continues next Sunday on HBO in the US and airs on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK. Watch a clip for season 7 episode 3, 'The Queen's Justice', right here:
