No, HBO didn’t film multiple endings to Game of Thrones

During filming on the final season of Game of Thrones, the rumor got around that HBO was filming multiple endings to avoid leaks…because programming president Casey Bloys told students and faculty at Bethlehem’s Moravian College that HBO was filming multiple endings to avoid leaks. “You have to do that on a long show,” he said at the time. “Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”

The rumor caught on, with cast members like Emilia Clarke backing it up. Now, nearly two years later, Game of Thrones has wrapped. Was there any truth to it, Deadline asked Bloys the other day?

"No. I think that was something at an appearance, and I said it something like anecdotally, and it caught on. I don’t think they actually shot multiple endings. But putting that in the water supply wasn’t a bad thing to protect against leaks. They always had a little bit of edge of doubt because you couldn’t be totally sure."

Per Bloys, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss had this ending planned “for a long time.” That was always the way it was going to go down.

Bloys had a point about the show doing a good job at preventing leaks this year, though. Sure, there were spoilers available near the premiere of new episodes, because once those episode are sent out to affiliates there’s pretty much no way to stop it, but nothing solid for the long months beforehand.

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Bloys also had a few things to say about the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series starring Naomi Watts, set thousands of years before the events of the mother show. “The casting was completed a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “They are busy in Belfast prepping and getting ready to start shooting in a couple of weeks.”

Fans are excited to have more of Westeros, and we know that the Watts prequel isn’t the only idea in development. Does Bloys see multiple Thrones shows on the air at any point?

"I doubt it, I don’t think so. I certainly do not want to overdo it. We have so many varied shows coming up in 2019 and ’20 and even into ’21. I think Game of Thrones is a fantastic property but I don’t want to just be the home of prequels and sequels and all that stuff. I think you want to be really careful about how you do it. That’s why we’ve been working on the [showrunner Jane Goldman] pilot for a long time, because we want to do it right. I think the last thing fans would want is something that was rushed out just to make it to air."

I think that’s the right way to go. Plenty of people have complained about the final season of Game of Thrones feeling rushed. No one wants to start off a new series like that.

Finally, Bloys gave a small update on Confederate, Benioff and Weiss’ idea for a show set in a  sideways version of America where the Civil War was fought to a standstill and slavery was still legal. The idea was widely condemned when announced, so it’s no surprise that we haven’t heard much about it lately. Can we assume that’ll continue? “[It’s] [n]ot on the front burner,” Bloys said. I’m guessing it’ll stay that way until it dies.

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