Winter is coming — next spring.
HBO announced in a teaser video Tuesday that Game of Thrones' long-anticipated final season will premiere in April 2019. Before you get too excited, there's no new footage in the teaser; it's just a 30-second compilation of some of the series' highlights. But snuck in right at the end is confirmation that the series is coming back within a few months.
HBO had previously only said that the show's last season would air sometime in the first half of the year, making fans worry that the premiere could be as late as the summer. Many had guessed the show would return in April, as this used to be the series' typical premiere month, and star Maisie Williams even said as much in an interview once. But Season 7 came out in July, and Williams later reversed her comments, both of which opened up the possibility of a later-than-usual start.
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There's no trailer for the final season of Game of Thrones yet, but some details were recently revealed in an Entertainment Weekly cover story, including that the first episode will feature a lot of callbacks to Season 1 as Daenerys Targaryen makes her arrival in Winterfell. The show's cast and crew have also been promising that the final season features the biggest battle sequence of all time — not just on television, but in movies, too. If that's the case, it sounds like the extended 20-month wait between seasons should turn out to be well worth it. Just don't hold your breath for those books. Brendan Morrow
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