When it was announced that the last season of “Game of Thrones” would be six episodes long, the only thing keeping fans from rioting was the fact that everyone involved with the series promised that these episodes would be longer than usual, approximately the length of a feature film. So the idea of the final season being comprised of six feature films seemed to be a worthwhile endeavor. But according to EW, that’s not entirely the case. You see, the final season of “Game of Thrones” will begin with a couple of shorter appetizers before fans reach the main course.
The most recent report confirms that the first two episodes of Season 8 of “Game of Thrones” will clock in at 54 minutes and 58 minutes, respectively. Obviously, fans can’t be mad that these episodes are almost an hour long (with no commercial breaks), but with only six episodes remaining, they were hoping to get as much bang for their HBO buck as possible.
As was the case with Season 7, these shorter run-times are probably down to the fact that so much of the ‘GoT’ budget was allocated to later episodes (including the upcoming Battle of Winterfell), that some of the more plot-driven entries will probably have a reduced budget and/or run-time.
The good news is that EW speculates that the last four episodes will all retain their feature-length promise, and as we’ve already reported, the aforementioned ‘Battle’ episode is said to come in at around 90 minutes. So, let’s not storm the HBO castle just yet, okay? There’s still going to be plenty of ‘GoT’ to dissect and digest.
The final season of “Game of Thrones” is scheduled to premiere on HBO on April 14. The finale is set to air on May 19.