With Game of Thrones expected to end after its eighth season, fans might expect the franchise to live on and wonder what could come after that.

HBO has never made a prequel series from one of its scripted hits. But Game of Thrones could change that.

The American cable channel has confirmed they are holding talks with Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin about a possible prequel to the popular series.

The writer has previously made it clear he has a huge amount of back-story material on the history of Westeros which could be used for a follow-up if HBO wanted to go in that direction.

HBO programming director Casey Bloys has told that the talks have not yet focused in on any specific element of the back-story - “I would say it’s still kind of preliminary, ongoing talks”.

Game of Thrones Season 7 will premiere later than usual; rather than April, it'll instead debut sometime during the summer of 2017.

It'll be shorter than past seasons and will have only seven episodes.

The first released Season 7 teaser can be seen here: