HBO wanted the final Game of Thrones season to be even longer and made the money available

The showrunners said no because they've a certain timeframe in mind

As always, if you haven't seen the most recent Game of Thrones episode, consider this to be your spoiler alert warning. After eight seasons and countless twists, deaths, battles, lies, Houses, dragons, wars, characters, kings, queens, lords, ladies, White Walkers, and Hot Pie, it all comes down to this. The Queen is dead, will The Mad Queen reign? Of course, there are countless other issues that need to be resolved - we've done a deep dive on some of the most pressing ones here - but the biggest question is about the Iron Throne, will Daenerys replace Cersei as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, or is there another contender that will win the game of thrones? With so many issues that have yet to be resolved, plenty of people have been curious why the final season has been the shortest one in terms of the amount of episodes. On average, the durations of these six episodes are longer than the episodes in the other seven seasons which is great, but plenty of fans are concerned that there's still an awful lot to wrap up in the final episode. With so many characters, plots, and storylines to resolve, can Game of Thrones stick the landing? To compound matters, the obvious issues with pacing and plotting have been an issue this season because it's impossible to shake the feeling that certain moments, character arcs, and scenes are being rushed. In an interview with EW, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, showrunners on Game of Thrones, have said that HBO did give them every possible means to perfect the final season. "To their credit, they put their money where their mouths are — literally stuffed their mouth full of million-dollar bills which don’t exist anymore. They said, 'We’ll give you the resources to make this what it needs to be, and if what it needs to be is a summer tentpole-size spectacle in places, then that’s what it will be,'" said Weiss. Of course, nobody wants to see something they love come to an end and Benioff added that HBO were exactly the same because they were pushing for more episodes. "HBO would have been happy for the show to keep going, to have more episodes in the final season. We always believed it was about 73 hours, and it will be roughly that. As much as they wanted more, they understood that this is where the story ends," said Benioff. To their credit, Benioff and Weiss have been consistent when it comes to the endgame of Thrones and the amount of episodes that were required to tell their story. In a previous interview with Deadline, they talked about their plans to wrap up the show and said that things would be wrapped up within 70-75 hours of television. “From pretty close to the beginning, we talked about doing this in 70-75 hours, and that’s what we’ll end up with. Call it 73 for now," said Benioff. Eight years since the first episode aired, the epic saga comes to a conclusion this Sunday. It's bound to be emotional. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyBPzUe3hNI