Game of Thrones' final season set to premiere in 'first half' of 2019

Game of Thrones' final season will debut in the 'first half' of next year, according to Casey Bloys, HBO's programming president.

The prequel to Game of Thrones will not focus on a specific character but rather a group effort, Bloys told Deadline Wednesday at the Television Critics Association summer event in Beverly Hills, California.

Bloys said screenwriter Jane Goldman did not center things around a male or female protagonist in her script.

'There are very strong female characters but it's an ensembles, there is men and women,' Bloys told the outlet. 'Jane is a very good writer, we don't want to limit her to writing female leads.'

Bloys added that 'there are a lot of very complicated leads in' the pilot she wrote - selected against four other scripts written by top scribes in the industry - which was green-lit by HBO execs last month.

Bloys said that the pilot - which occurs 8,000 years before the time-frame of Game of Thrones - 'will feel very different,' as 'it's a very different setting, a very different time in Westeros.

'It will feel different, but still Game of Thrones,' he added, noting that Goldman 'did not go into that wanting to answer anything about Game of Thrones,' as 'it was the story that spoke to her.'