'Game of Thrones' plans to end after Season 7 or Season 8

Fans of the HBO hit Game of Thrones might want to appreciate each new episode of the show a bit more, as co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed in a recent interview that the show would come to an end after Season 7 or Season 8.

"We know there's an end somewhere in the seven- or eight-season zone. It's not something that goes 10, 11-it doesn't just keep on going because it can," Weiss told Vanity Fair. "I think the desire to milk more out of it is what would eventually kill it, if we gave in to that."

"It feels like this is the midpoint for us," Benioff told EW. of the current Season 4. "If we're going to go seven seasons, which is the plan, Season 4 is right down the middle, the pivot point."

This sets up an interesting situation because George R.R. Martin, who wrote the books on which the show is based, has not completed the final book in the series. In fact, it took him five years to complete the sixth book after the fifth one released in

But Weiss and Denioff revealed that they know Martin's plan for the end of the series and that they sat down with him to "talk through where things are going, because we don't know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be," according to Benioff.

"If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character," he told Vanity Fair.

Martin told Vanity Fair he has given Weiss and Denioff "broad strokes" of his plan. "I'm hopeful that I can not let them catch up with me," he said.

Benioff told Vanity Fair that the decision to end the show comes down to keeping high quality.

"If you look at the shows that we love, it's so rare for a series to go beyond that length and maintain quality," he said. "And, you know, looking at Breaking Bad, which is probably the most consistently great show in history, and I think the fact that they decided relatively early, it's going to be five seasons and that's it, I think that was an incredibly smart choice."

What do you think of this news? Are you sad to know the end date, happy that the show wants to go out on a high note, or both? Let us know in the comments below.