When will Game of Thrones season 8 debut? We investigate

If ever there was a Long Night for Game of Thrones fans, it’s got to be now, during the interminably long wait for the final season of the show. It’s been nearly a year since we got a new episode, and we won’t get one until sometime in 2019. Remember when we all wrung our hands about having to wait an extra handful of months to see season 7? Oh, my sweet summer child.

But when exactly in 2019 will the final season premiere? While we don’t know anything for sure, we thought we’d look at the show’s history and take a wild shot in the dark make some educated guesses.

For its first six seasons, Game of Thrones aired in the spring of each year, but season 7 didn’t premiere until July. This was because showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss waited until colder weather to start filming, since winter had arrived in Westeros and many of the scenes featured snow.

• Season 1 ran from April 17, 2011 through June 19, 2011
• Season 2 ran from April 1, 2012 through June 3, 2012
• Season 3 ran from March 31, 2013 through June 9, 2013
• Season 4 ran from April 6, 2014 through June 15, 2014
• Season 5 ran from April 12, 2015 through June 14, 2015
• Season 6 ran from April 24, 2016 through June 26, 2016
• Season 7 ran from July 16, 2017 through August 27, 2017

Does that mean HBO will again air season 8 in a summertime slot, so it matches? Will the two coldest seasons of the show debut in the warmest time of the year? Not necessarily.

The other thing we have to consider is the time it takes for the show to do post-production work — editing, special effects, ADR, etc. Season 7 took seven months to film — they started in August of 2016 and wrapped up in February of 2017, a long time. Then, five months later, in July, the episodes were editing and touched up and ready for primetime.

Season 8 took even longer to film — the crew started in October of last year and only wrapped up this month, in July. That’s a staggering nine months of production time, easily the longest HBO has ever spent shooting the show. Based on what we’ve seen trickle out of the set, they worked very hard shooting some spectacular battle footage. That will take a while to edit, but even cutting them a lot of slack, it won’t take that much longer.

Since HBO spent more time filming season 8 than season 7, let’s assume they’ll also spend more time in post-production — seven months up from five months, say. Even with that pessimistic estimate, the season would be ready to go by February of 2019. Given that, our bet is that season 8 will return to its normal timeslot and debut sometime in the spring, either March or April. Sure, HBO could hold it off until the summer, but that will be a conscious choice on its part, and sure to upset some fans.

But we won’t sure until HBO announces a date. But by out count, we’ve got about eight months to go.

Next: Natalie Dormer (Margaery) knows the ending to Game of Thrones and you don’t

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