Game of Thrones season 8 (approximate) episode lengths hit web

We’ve heard for quite some time now that Game of Thrones season 8 is going to be doing some rather-long episodes — the longest for the show to date, even. Now, we have some more news on this very subject for you and as it turns out, the rumors seem to be true, so make sure you have some of those Costco sized cheese ball tubs ready cause you’ll be settling in while watching these.

According to French magazine Premiere (which is getting its information from a local TV network conference — see the tweets below), the two first episodes of the final season are going to run around 60 minutes; meanwhile, the last four are going to run closer to 80. We do not believe that these times are exact — they rarely are this far in advance — but they give you a good sense of what HBO is targeting.

So why have two episodes that are so much shorter than the rest? According to Entertainment Weekly (who uncovered these tweets for US readers), much of this has to do with distribution. HBO typically wants their drama series to be 60 minutes or less, largely because it is easier for scheduling purposes both for themselves and international partners. If an episode runs longer than an this, what that means is that there has to be a little bit of schedule retooling for a number of different distributors all over the world. That can be a difficult thing to do … at least if you aren’t Game of Thrones.

Because we are talking here about arguably the biggest show on television these days, it’s hard to imagine a single international network not being interested in having an extra 20 or so minutes of it on the air. It has the luxury of being able to tell more of a story on its own terms.

Of course, there is an argument to be made here that Game of Thrones could have shaved fifteen or so minutes from all of its longer episodes and made another hour-long episode out of that. Yet, there’s probably something about the specific flow of the episodes done this way that they are a particular fan of. Regardless, we know that fans are going to watch – heck they could’ve made each episode 5 hours long and we would all be watching.

Related News – Be sure to get some more information regarding Game of Thrones, including the latest headlines via Sophie Turner

What do you think of the Game of Thrones final season right now having episodes that are this long? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: HBO.)