No, Game Of Thrones Season 8 Won't Air In Movie Theaters

It was recently reported that episodes in Game of Thrones' final season, Season 8, could each be feature-length. Now, HBO's programming boss, Casey Bloys, has confirmed that the network has no plans to air the episodes in theaters.

Asked by The Hollywood Reporter if he would rule out a theatrical release for the eighth season, Bloys bluntly said, "I would." He added, "This is for subscribers," referencing that only HBO subscribers will be able to watch Game of Thrones.

It wouldn't have been totally unusual for Game of Thrones to play in movie theaters, as some people got to see the Season 6 premiere in a theater, according to EW.

As for when Season 8 will air, Bloys said he cannot speculate as to whether it will be in 2018 or 2019, or sometime later.

"All I will tell you is it is obviously a very ambitious season. This is the culmination of eight seasons of fantastic storytelling," he said. "They are writing, and they need to look at the production schedule, and we will take their lead in terms of the airdate that works best for them. They don't even know; they are still putting the season together. And as you can imagine, it's a very complicated show to produce, so it's not like putting together a production schedule for a sitcom that shoots on the stage. It shoots all over the world and takes a long time to figure out where, when and how to shoot. So they're in the process of doing that, and they'll let us know."

There will only be six episodes in Season 8, but as mentioned, they are expected to be longer than episodes in past seasons, so the total runtime may not be all that different.

Although Game of Thrones ends after Season 8, HBO is working on as many as five prequels, so fans of the series are due for more.

Game of Thrones returns for its seventh season this Sunday, July 16. Images from the first episode were released earlier today.