Right on the heels of its announcement that Game of Thrones’ final season will not premiere until 2019, HBO has released another bit of unfortunate news to series fans. Collider reported this week that the premium cable network has confirmed that any Game of Thrones spin-offs will not premiere until 2020 at the earliest.
News of HBO’s plans for possible spin-offs working off of its hit fantasy series broke last spring before Game of Thrones season 7 premiered. Since then, rumors have been swirling over what the spin-offs could possible be about and when they would air on television.
Though HBO has still not said what its story plans are, the network’s programming president Casey Bloys finally talked possible air-dates with the press during the ongoing Television Critics Association tour.
Bloys revealed that there are five possible spin-off series in the works, going on to say that, “If we do a pilot and series, nothing is going to air on HBO until at least a year after the final season. …I’ve seen some exciting material. We have really great writers working on these; it’s very exciting. But there’s no timetable. Not everybody is on the same schedule, so I’ve seen different versions of different things that are potentially exciting. But there’s no timetable about when a decision would be made about any of them.”
Fans of the series have been hopeful that HBO’s planned spin-offs might follow the travels of Dunk and Egg, two other characters that George R.R. Martin has developed in the Game of Thrones universe in companion works. Alternatively, many have hoped the spin-offs might tell the story of Robert Baratheon’s rebellion, covering the years before Game of Thrones season 1.
However, the fantasy author has since come out and said that the HBO series will not be featuring either of these storylines. It remains to be seen what story ideas are being contemplated and what will actually be put into production.
