HBO boss responds to Game of Thrones series finale criticism, says "nope, nope nope" to sequel spinoff series

The Hollywood Reporter

"What's great about the show is it made people feel a lot of things — positive and negative," said HBO programming president Casey Bloys, in an extensive interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "A lot of people had invested in characters and hoped for certain things and wanted to see certain twists. There's probably a little bit of mourning going on that the show is over. I get it, I understand it: it's a big show and people really invested a lot in it — and that says a lot about what the show did. People really cared about it." Bloys said David Benioff and D.B. Weiss "have known what they've wanted to do for a long, long time. They've had a plan in their mind. I've been on the record saying I'd take five more seasons. But they've had a plan that they wanted to do and this made sense to them. They made this decision a long time ago and they're doing it exactly how they planned to do it." Asked if he considered exploring sequels, such as an Arya Stark-traveling-west series, Bloys responded: "Nope, nope, nope. No. Part of it is, I do want this show — this Game of Thrones, Dan and David's show — to be its own thing. I don't want to take characters from this world that they did beautifully and put them off into another world with someone else creating it. I want to let it be the artistic piece they've got. That's one of reasons why I'm not trying to do the same show over. George (R.R. Martin) has massive, massive world; there are so many ways in. That's why we're trying to do things that feel distinct — and to not try and re-do the same show. That's probably one of the reasons why, right now, a sequel or picking up any of the other characters doesn't make sense for us."