LOS ANGELES: “Game of Thrones” fans will have to wait until 2019 for the planned final season of the award-winning medieval fantasy series, a gap of more than a year since the end of season seven.
Cable channel HBO said that “Game of Thrones” would return in 2019 for a six-episode final season. It did not specify the month.
The series is HBO’s biggest hit ever with some 30 million viewers in the US alone and an army of devoted fans worldwide.
The final season of the Emmy Award-winning show is expected to reveal which of the warring families in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros will win the multigenerational struggle for control of the Iron Throne.
Production on the final season started in October, and filming is expected to last until mid-2018. HBO’s head of programming, Casey Bloys, has said multiple endings will be filmed to avoid leaks or hacks of how the saga ends.
Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss told Entertainment Weekly in 2016 that they wanted to make the series finale as spectacular as possible. HBO said on Thursday that Benioff and Weiss will also direct the final season.
The seventh season ended last August with an average of more than 30 million US viewers per episode across multiple platforms. Some of its seven episodes were more than an hour long.
The long gap until the final season would give author George R. R. Martin the chance to finish one or two new “Game of Thrones” books that he said in July he was working on.
The television series has already advanced beyond the events of Martin’s five published “A Song of Ice and Fire” series of novels.
‘Game of Thrones’ last season set for 2019
‘Game of Thrones’ last season set for 2019
Harry Styles announces first album in 4 years, ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally’
- It follows the critically acclaimed synth pop “Harry’s House,” which earned the former One Direction star album of the year at the 2023 Grammy Awards
- “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” will contain 12 tracks and is executive produced by Kid Harpoon
NEW YORK: In this world, it’s just him: Harry Styles has announced that his long-awaited, fourth studio album will arrive this spring.
Titled “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” and out March 6, the album is Styles’ first full-length project in four years. It follows the 2022, critically acclaimed synth pop record “Harry’s House,” which earned the former One Direction star the top prize of album of the year at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
In a review, The Associated Press celebrated “Harry’s House” for showcasing “a breadth of style that matches the album’s emotional range.”
On Instagram, Styles’ shared the cover artwork for “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” which features the 31-year-old artist in a T-shirt and jeans at night, standing underneath a shimmering disco ball hung outside.
According to a press release, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” will contain 12 tracks and is executive produced by Kid Harpoon. The British songwriter and producer has been a close collaborator of Styles’ since the beginning of his solo career, working on all of his albums since the singer’s 2017 self-titled debut.
“Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” is now available for preorder.
It is also Styles’ first project since his former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne died in 2024 after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.
