HBO gives Game of Thrones season 8 release date and episode length update: 'It's a big season'

The network is worried two-hour episodes would be 'excessive'

All six scripts for the final season of Game of Thrones are now in.

HBO programming president Casey Bloys confirmed this at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour on Wednesday, but said a release date is still up in the air.

This is largely down the production schedule and logistics being tricky to nail as season 8 will be such a mammoth and unwieldy beast.

"It’s a big season," Bloys explained. "So they’re trying to get a sense of how long they’re going to take to film this."

Season 7 wasn't straightforward either - despite dropping from 10 episodes to 7 - it arrived six months later than usual as production needed to be pushed back to real world winter as winter arrived in Westeros.

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will write the final four episodes of the show, but relatively little else is known about them.

With season 7's finale set to weigh in at 82 minutes, Bloys was asked about run times for season 8.

"I imagine they’ll be longer but … I’m not sure [how long]," he said. "We haven’t had that discussion yet because I don’t know how long the episodes are going to be. Two hours per episode seems like it would be excessive, but it’s a great show, so who knows?"

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