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There could be an even longer wait for the final six episodes of Game of Thrones.

According to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, the final scripts are written – Dave Hill is penning the first episode, Bryan Cogman the second, and D.B. Weiss and David Benioff the remainder – and are now being storyboarded. “It’s a big season,” Bloys explained at the TCA tour. “They’re trying to get a sense of how long it’s going to take them to shoot this.”

This could mean a 2019 release for the episodes, all of which are expected to have longer running times – possibly even feature length.

None of the prequel series are going to start up hot on the heels of season 8, nor will they feature any of the present cast. “The number one priority in all of this is the final season of Game of Thrones,” Bloys noted. “I don’t want any spinoff or anything that detracts or distracts from that. That season will happen, my guess is it would be at least a year before you saw anything else. What I don’t want is the attention to be drawn from the final season, which I think is going to be epic and amazing, and somehow have the distraction of a new Game of Thrones airing right after it. I think it’s best to separate it, and that’s what we’ll do.”