It's finally happening! Game of Thrones season 7 is almost here, and new images and posters are coming with the trailer.
Aye, Game of Thrones season 7 will consist of seven episodes and is arriving on July 16, confirming the icy dread that 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.”
But there is plenty of good news too. Join us in this living and breathing document as we anticipate the coming ice storm...
Watch Game of Thrones on Amazon
Latest Game of Thrones Season 7 News
The real news for the long weekend is that the Game of Thrones season 7 premiere episode is expected to clock in at 58 minutes. This is the longest premiere for the series in three years, and is par for the course since it was confirmed that all of the stars will have more screentime this year. Then again since half of the cast got massacred in season 6, that makes a lot of sense.
Meanwhile, with the trailer finally released in its full glory below, HBO is putting all its cards down for season 7, and unsurprisingly they are doing it via Entertainment Weekly. Indeed, we have a whole set of new EW covers that prove season 7 will be a time for wolves since they are all focused on the children of House Stark. Fully grown now, the actors and their characters have come of age onscreen, and now is indeed their time to howl in the new year of Westerosi goodness.
We also got this gnarly new poster:
Game of Thrones Season 7 Trailer
The Game of Thrones season 7 trailer is here! You can view our complete breakdown and analysis of the trailer here, but if you haven't feasted your eyes on it yet...
You can also pay fealty to the earlier "The Walk" promo, which showcases the three remaining (major) players in Westeros who have a proverbial crown on their head: Cersei Lannister in King's Landing, Jon Snow (one day, they're going to start calling him Jon Stark, right?!) in Winterfell, and Daenerys Targaryen in what I suspect is a throne room within Dragonstone. If you do not recall, Dragonstone was the storm-tormented island that Stannis Baratheon languished away upon for years until his brother died, and it is also the location Dany's mother fled on a stormy night while giving birth to her daughter.
All three look ready to continue the game, albeit Jon's game is more about preserving the North than taking the Iron Throne. And speaking of the North, there is an unexpected fourth party who makes a cameo near the end of the tease.
Below is the first teaser, in case you missed it.
Game of Thrones Season 7 Release Date
The Game of Thrones season 7 release date is July 16, 2017.
Game of Thrones Season 7 Episodes
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?