Someone tell George R.R. Martin: HBO wants 10 seasons of Game of Thrones

All men must die. All shows must end. As we enter the fifth season of Game of Thrones we find ourselves closer to the end than to the beginning, but if HBO programming president Michael Lombardo has his way, we might only be halfway through.

Lombardo spoke to Entertainment Weekly and revealed that he would love to see Game of Thrones last ten seasons.

“This is the hard part of what we do. We started this journey with David and Dan. It’s their vision. Would I love the show to go 10 years as both a fan and a network executive? Absolutely.”

While this isn’t something he’s yet discussed with series show-runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, he’s thankfully leaving how long the show will last up to them.

“We’ll have an honest conversation that explores all possible avenues. If they weren’t comfortable going beyond seven seasons, I trust them implicitly and trust that’s the right decision—as horrifying as that is to me. What I’m not going to do is have a show continue past where the creators believe where they feel they’ve finished with the story.”

There’s nothing worse than a network that forces creators to drag out a series beyond its natural end point. As much as Game of Thrones fans want more of it, they would prefer it went out at the top of its game rather than several years after people have stopped caring. Luckily that’s just how David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would have it as well:

“We want to go out on our absolute highest note,” Weiss says. “We don’t want people to finally see the end and say, ‘Thank god that’s over.’” Adds Benioff: “We know basically how many hours are left in this story. We don’t want to add 10 hours to that. It’s about finding that sweet spot so it works for us and for HBO and, most of all, it works for the audience.”

The idea of a Game of Thrones film has been tossed around these past few years and surprisingly, Lombardo isn’t keen on the idea.

“Certainly there have been conversations where it’s been said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to [make a movie]?’ But when you start a series with our subscribers, the promise is that for your HBO fee that we’re going to take you to the end of this. I feel that on some level [a movie would be] changing the rules: Now you have to pay $16 to see how your show ends.”

I completely agree with him on this; as cool as it would be to see Game of Thrones produced with an even bigger budget, I’d much rather see the conclusion play out within the TV show itself. HBO seems reluctant to let go of this juggernaut but there are other avenues to consider if they want to keep the show going; can you say…spin-off? George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones prequel series, Tales of Dunk and Egg, seems like an obvious choice. There have been three novellas in the series written so far and Martin has stated that there will be more to come. When? Who knows.

The fifth season of Game of Thrones returns to HBO on April 12th.