Here's everything we know so far about Game of Thrones Season 7, from release date, to spoiler leaks, and now new casting info.
And like that, our summer joy quickly vanished, its warm embrace fading into the bitter taste of a winter’s kiss in a seeming instant. For despite Game of Thrones finishing its 2016 season before even the Fourth of July, White Walkers were on the move… and we have to now wait possibly another nine months until Game of Thrones season 7 relieves us from our patient watch once more!
Aye, Game of Thrones season 7 will consist of seven episodes and debut possibly several months later than expected, confirming the icy dread that fans have expected for months now: the Long Night of Winter is here, and the coming summer will be shorter than ever.
“Now that winter has arrived on Game Of Thrones, executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing,” Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming, said in a statement. “Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule.”
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But there is plenty of good news too. Join us in this living and breathing document as we anticipate the coming ice storm!
Latest Game of Thrones News
As Game of Thrones filming heats up in Spain, fans and paparazzi alike have learned a many splendored thing. But one of the most surprising is that actor Tom Hopper is joining the cast in a role we've already seen... as Dickon Tarly?!
Indeed, Hopper is currently best known to premium cable fans as playing Billy Bones on Starz's Black Sails pirate series. However, as that show has ended, Hopper has been spotted by Los Siete Reinos as hanging out around the set with James Faulkner, who plays Randyll Tarly. Additionally, Watchers on the Wall has aptly deduced that he will likely be playing Dickon since the actor who played him for one scene in season 6, Freddie Stroma, has moved onto to starring in Time After Time, a new sci-fi series based on H.G. Wells at ABC.
Dickon Tarly is younger brother to Samwell Tarly, but also far more like their shared athletic, militaristic, and cruel father. When Stroma played him in season 6, he showed an indifference for his older brother (who Randyll ran out of Horn Hill before the start of the series, pressuring Sam to join the Night's Watch so Dickon would become the heir). He also dismisses talk of White Walkers as nonsense.
Presumably, he'll get his chance to meet one now that winter has finally come.
Game of Thrones Season 7 Premiere Date
As has been much discussed, Game of Thrones season 7 was delayed until an unspecified month in summer 2017. The reason for the delay was previously explained by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. Apparently, now that Winter is finally here (it only took six years!), it means that production will have to start later--in September to be exact--to allow for the proper grim and gray weather necessary for Westeros.
“No … we don’t have an airdate yet, but this year it’ll probably be a bit later,” the showrunners told UFC Unfiltered hosts Matt Serra and Jim Norton. “[Because] we’re starting a bit later because at the end of this season, ‘winter is here,’ and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore. So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.”
During the show's SDCC panel, which we covered live, Benioff further explained with some humor, "We have to shoot in places where there are trees, so we have to wait for the leaves to fall off. So, we’re actually waiting to shoot [until] later in the year. That means we don’t finish shooting until February, and there’s no way of finishing post; there’s no way to get the show out there until summer."
Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode Count
First, HBO unsurprisingly greenlit Game of Thrones for a season 7 before season 6 even aired. Building up the week of hype for the premiere, the premium cable network nonchalantly confirmed a seventh season in late April, but tellingly did not reveal the length.
We now know that it will be seven episodes, something that Benioff and Weiss have hinted for months now. But also worth noting is that at this time, season 8 looks poised to only be a mere six episodes.
Benioff and Weiss also confirmed this is the gameplan still while chatting with Deadline after season 6 concluded. On the endgame, Benioff said, "It’s two more seasons we’re talking about. 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."
This would appear to confirm that season 7 will stick to their initial plan as a seven-episode affair. Still, maybe they'll realize they need an extra one or two episodes in season 8, so we'll get more than just six hours for the final year?