Final two seasons of 'Game of Thrones' to be shorter

Benioff says they don't want to overstay their welcome but want to end it on a high

After ending the sixth season of Game of Thrones on a ratings high, showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss have revealed that the final two series on the hit franchise will be shorter.

The show completed some of the important character arcs in the 6th season and some of the major players are ready to take the story forward in the next season.

"It's two more seasons we're talking about. From pretty close to the beginning, we talked about doing this in 70-75 hours, and that's what we'll end up with. Call it 73 for now," Benioff told the Deadline, confirming reports that the final two seasons will be shorter than usual.

Benioff says despite the popularity of the show they don't want to overstay their welcome but want to end it on a high.

"What Dan (Weiss) says is really true, but it's not just trying not to outstay your welcome. We're trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end. As Dan said, we've known the end for quite some time and we're hurtling towards it... The pieces are on the board now. Some of the pieces have been removed from the board and we are heading toward the end game...We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it. We wanted to something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We're definitely heading into the end game now."

While the show has ventured out of the book, Benioff and co-showrunner Weiss have had a lot of conversations with the Ice and Fire book author George R R Martin about the direction of the story.

"As we get close to the ending, we've been talking about that for so long, things come into better focus. Once we get to the final end game, we've got very specific ideas that have grown organically over the past six plus years about where everything will end up," Benioff said.