Game of Thrones is arguably the biggest show on television, and it unfortunately comes with painfully long hiatuses between seasons. At this point, we don't even know for sure if the next (and final) season will air before 2019. It's difficult to think that we might have to wait more than a full year to see what happens next after the crazy finale that saw the Wall coming down, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen hooking up, and everybody apart from Cersei joining forces against the White Walkers. Well, we shouldn't count on too many spoilers about the very end of Season 8 leaking. According to HBO president Casey Bloys, steps are being taken to prevent leaks for the series finale:
I know in 'Game of Thrones,' the ending, they're going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens. You have to do that on a long show. 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.
Casey Bloys revealed that Game of Thrones plans to shoot multiple endings while speaking at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (via The Morning Call), and it's a reveal that makes quite a lot of sense after the last several months. Game of Thrones Season 7 was plagued by a number of different hacks and leaks, and two of the seven episodes were released online days before they were set to air live on HBO. Luckily for HBO, Season 7 turned in the highest ratings of the series to date, so the leaks didn't negatively affect how many people tuned in to watch. Still, we can bet that Bloys and Co. would have preferred if Thrones secrets had stayed secret.
Of course, there's no guarantee that there won't be any last-minute accidents that result in leaked episodes closer to the Season 8 premiere, but filming different endings at least means that nobody on set will be able to definitively spoil the ending, intentionally or not. If not even the actors know which ending is really going to close out the grand finale of the Game of Thrones saga, series finale spoilers might not amount to much. There will be no point in getting worked up over one leaked ending if we know that a number of endings were produced.
Game of Thrones had already been taking steps to protect scripts while filming is ongoing; perhaps it was the leaks of Season 7 that has motivated HBO to up the ante on protecting the ending. Then again, Game of Thrones isn't the first show to shoot multiple endings in order to keep secrets. The Sopranos and Breaking Bad did as well, to mixed results with viewers. We can only hope that Thrones won't end on quite as ambiguous a last scene as The Sopranos did. After eight seasons of a fantastical saga, I'd say that we deserve a definitive answer at the end about who does and does not sit on the Iron Throne.
We can only wait and see. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest in Game of Thrones news throughout hiatus, and check out our breakdown of what the Thrones actors will be up to in the not-too-distant future. For more small screen viewing options, swing by our fall TV premiere schedule.
