It looks like Season 8 of "Game of Thrones" will be less like a TV season than a series of feature length motion pictures.
At least that's what sources close to the show said during a new "Game of Thrones" convention known as Con of Thrones, according to a report by Deadline. Sound designer Paula Fairfield told audiences that the Season 7 finale will be 82 minutes long and that episodes of Season 8 may wind up consistently falling into the 80 minute range.
Given that there are only seven episodes in Season 7 and six episodes in Season 8, "Game of Thrones" fans may be grateful that they are at least getting more bang for their metaphorical bucks.
As HBO programming president Casey Bloys once told The Hollywood Reporter, the abbreviated seasons can be attributed to the creative vision of its showrunners.
As Bloys put it, "I think [the showrunners, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff] have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do. If I could get them to do more, I would take 10 seasons, but we want to take their lead with what they could do and what the best version of the show is."
As "Game of Thrones" prepares to take its final bows, the series is not without its controversies. One of them was called to mind during Con of Thrones by Sophie Turner, whose character Sansa Stark became a rape victim in the previous season.
"Sexual assault wasn’t something that had affected me or anybody I knew, so I was pretty blasé about the whole thing. Naively so. And then I shot the scene, and in the aftermath there was this huge uproar that we would depict something like that on television," Turner recalled.
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