Season eight of Game Of Thrones was meant to feature a battle involving 50 direwolves, it has been revealed.

The dropped scene was set to feature in ‘The Long Night’, the third episode in the final series of the HBO show.

Director Miguel Sapochnik has explained that the creatures were intended to gather to attack the Night King’s dragon, but the idea was scrapped because he thought it would be boring to watch.


“There were many things that happened, that people would have been so happy to have happen,” he told the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “Attack of direwolves and crazy stuff. At some point you’re like, ’50 direwolves attacking an undead dragon does not a good movie make.’”

He added that he was cautious about including the scene because it could have become “a remix of every battle we’ve done.”

Sapochnik also discussed the killing off of major characters in season eight, saying he wanted to be more ruthless about it but was stopped by writers and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. “I wanted to kill everyone,” he said. “I wanted to kill Jorah in the horse charge at the beginning.

“I wanted it to be ruthless so that in the first 10 minutes you say all bets are off, anyone can die. David and Dan didn’t want to. They were saving it for [penultimate episode] ‘The Bells’, kind of.”

Meanwhile, Game Of Thrones star Jacob Anderson has spoken out about the reaction to the show’s finale. Fans were divided over the controversial final episode, while over a million viewers signed a petition to remake the eighth season.


“I feel like not everybody is going to love everything,” he said. “There’s no way to make everybody happy. It’s a shame when people say something is good or bad with complete resolve anyway – it’s subjective. Storytelling is subjective. It’s fine if people don’t like it, some other people did.”