"Game of Thrones," the most-watched, medieval-themed fantasy drama on HBO, was set to run for at least seven seasons. However, The Guardian recently learned that executives are now discussing how much longer the show will extend thereafter.
Michael Lombardo, HBO programming president, said that creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss felt like there's going to be two more years after season 6.
A reporter asked Lombardo, during the Television Critics Association's press tour Thursday if the show would come to an end after season 7. He announced that the series would likely go for at least eight seasons.
"Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation," he responded. "The question is: How much beyond seven are we going to do?"
Lombardo's statement didn't mean that "Game of Thrones" had been officially renewed for its 8th season because the current order is only until next year, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The programming director also defended the violent scenes in the show saying that they are part of its many threads from episode 1. The series showed a savage rape scene and burning of a child, which became controversial.
Furthermore, he said that Benioff and Weiss were really careful about not overstepping on what they thought the line was.
"Game of Thrones," which received 24 Emmy nominations, hit 20 million viewers on average of the fifth season.
Meanwhile, "Game of Thrones" reportedly helped in launching HBO Now. Lombardo said he was pleased with the result of the rollout, but did not reveal its exact number of subscribers, as per ABC News.
HBO Now is a new standalone service from Home Box Office. The service, which rolled out in April, allows subscribers to watch the network's series and movie offerings even without a cable subscription, unlike HBO Go, Techradar reported.
"Game of Thrones" is slated to return to HBO for its sixth season on April 2016, as posted on IMDb.
