When will Game of Thrones end? "We’re heading into the home stretch," say showrunners

"We know what the end is, and we’re barreling toward it," says co-creator David Benioff, adding that stretching the series out over a few more seasons would be a "betrayal" to the story

By Ellie Walker-Arnott

16 April 2015

The RadioTimes

Fans hoping for more and more seasons of Game of Thrones are likely to be disappointed. Despite HBO's programming president Michael Lombardo recently admitting that he'd "absolutely" love the hit fantasy drama to run for more than seven series, showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff are certain that the end is in sight...

"We're heading into the home stretch," Benioff told Variety, adding that trying to "stretch [the story] out by an extra couple of years... would be a betrayal." 

"We’ve got a very definitive idea of how much longer it is, and we’re getting there," he said. "We could go another four years – and we could come up with good stories – but the one thing that really got us excited when we pitched this to HBO was that this isn’t just a regular series. It’s a real story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

"We know what the end is, and we’re barreling toward it. So the idea that we’re going to try and stretch it out by an extra couple years just because we’re all having a good time doing it and people are making money off it just feels like it would be a betrayal." 

"Sometimes you’ll be at a party," chipped in co-creator Dan Weiss. "You’re surrounded by people you love and you’re having a great time and it’s late and you’re like, “I should really go home, but man, this is a great party. I’m going to order one more beer, why not? When’s the next time I’m going to be in a party this great again?” And then you have another beer and you have a martini, and then it’s 6:30 in the morning, you’re like, “Why the f*** am I still at this party?"

It's convincing logic. The only issue is that the ending, which we are apparently "barreling" towards, is still a little up in the air, with writer George RR Martin yet to finish book six The Winds of Winter, let alone the final novel in the series the show is based on. 

"We’ve had a lot of conversations with George, and he makes a lot of stuff up as he’s writing it," admits Benioff. "Even while we talk to him about the ending, it doesn’t mean that that ending that he has currently conceived is going to be the ending when he eventually writes it." 

Clearly the showrunners aren't fazed by Martin's unfinished tale, but it doesn't mean their job is all plain sailing from now on. 

"We’re getting close to the ending, and there is that huge desire to get it right," says Benioff. "I think it’s hard to take that step back and be like, 'We did it.' Because we haven’t done it yet.

"There is just the terror of f***ing it up still."