We knew Game of Thrones season 8 (opens in new tab) wouldn’t cut corners when it came to capping off the series with its final six episodes, but the reported Game of Thrones season 8 episode runtimes that have just been revealed put it in a whole ‘nother ball park. We’re talking two-thirds of the show’s final run potentially going above and beyond the longest current Game of Thrones episode – and the other two aren’t exactly bite-sized either.
As reported by Winter is Coming (opens in new tab), French outlet Premiere witnessed an Orange Cinema Series presentation involving Game of Thrones season 8, presumably with the intention of OCS, a collection of French TV channels, laying out the groundwork for airing the new Thrones season.
Now, my French is a little rusty but, during the talk, Premiere reveals that the first two Game of Thrones season 8 episode runtimes would be set at 60 minutes, while the final four would be 80 minutes. Each would, with commercials, span 90 minutes on-air. For context, the longest Game of Thrones episode is the Game of Thrones season 7 (opens in new tab) finale, at a bum-numbing 81 minutes.
Précision utile : @OCSTV a expliqué oralement que les deux premiers épisodes de la saison finale de #GameOfThrones allaient durer 60 minutes, et les quatre suivants 80 mn d’après les dernières infos de HBO https://t.co/UIDwB7xtvU22 January 2019
See more
These episode runtimes, though, may just be rough placeholders. Not every episode is coming in at an exact hour, but at least we now have guidelines on what to expect for the final six Game of Thrones season 8 episodes and how long they’ll last. Maybe the fight scene(s) that’ll make the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park (opens in new tab) will take up the majority of a handful of those 80-minute runtimes, who knows?
Either way, we’re (probably) getting the epic Game of Thrones season 8 conclusion we were all hoping for, at least in terms of how long each episode will be. It amounts to 440 minutes (7 hours and 20 minutes), or roughly 73 minutes an episode on average. April 14 can’t come soon enough.
Several hours of television stand between us and the Game of Thrones ending (opens in new tab), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some stuff already out there about the show’s final moments…