HBO announced that the show would end with with 2 shortened seasons in April of 2016, which means they knew even before then. That's a full 22 months minimum before their Star Wars project was announced. The two aren't related. They didn't turn down more seasons from HBO because of Star Wars. They turned down more seasons because they always viewed this as a 70-80 hour story. They've said as much since 2012.
People can take issues with the idea of viewing GoT as a 70-80 hour story and whether that was a wise story telling decision. But the notion that they suddenly came to the decision late in the process is factually not true.
Uh....no man.
Two shortened seasons =/= it's automatically a train wreck. "BB" had two shortened final seasons and they had no problem sticking the landing.
The "Star Wars" deal was officially announced half way through production of season 8. Meaning, they knew about it prior to season 8. So they had the prospects of a "Star Wars" project hanging over their heads as they were going into the final season. If you don't think that affected the quality of the final season....no offense, but you're nuts.
And the number of seasons/episodes was never etched in stone. Here's an article from 2014 where Weiss and Benioff wanted to end it after 7 seasons:
'Game of Thrones' team: 7 seasons is the plan
I guess this is the part where you say "but 7 seasons = 70 episodes"....but the final season (whatever number it was) was originally meant to be extended. Not shortened:
Game of Thrones: HBO wants more than 7 seasons
Perhaps the most likely outcome for the end of Thrones is having an extended, split-run seventh and final season — where more episodes are ordered than Thrones‘ usual 10, but half air one year and half air the next. This would get HBO another “season” without having to renegotiate with the cast since all the episodes are technically part of the seventh round they’re already optioned for. AMC employed this strategy with the final seasons of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, but HBO used this technique first with the sixth and final season of The Sopranos, which consisted of 21 episodes instead of the usual 13. Additionally distributing the final two hours beyond HBO with some sort of theatrical run for fans who want to see it in the theater wouldn’t be surprising, either.
Also, keep in mind "GOT" season 8 being pushed back to 2019 was announced two months prior to the "Star Wars" deal. Meaning, they knew about it when they made that decision:
Why 'Game of Thrones' Won't Return Until 2019
Lastly, all 6 episodes in season 8 were supposed to be longer than an hour:
Confirmed: All <em>Game of Thrones</em> Season 8 Episodes Will Be Over an Hour Long
In the end, only 4 were. Which again, would've been decided in editing
after the "Star Wars" deal was announced.
So....yeah.
Fred.
) that HBO will order a book faithful adaptation of the whole series. Might be wishful thinking, but HBO has shown to be serious about greenlighting a lot of series for HBO Max, including animation, and they did do limited animation for the GoT Blu Rays that proved to be popular with the fans. I think it would be well received and pull in decent ratings , especially if they got some of the actors back on board for voice work.
