Game of Thrones Season Seven will feature seven episodes,a departure from the series previous 10-episode format, HBO announced Monday. Production will begin later this summer in Northern Ireland, with additional portions filmed in Spain and Iceland. The season will debut in the summer of 2017, rather than its usual spring launch time.
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 shows traditional spring debut, were moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule.
Game of Thrones earned 23 Primetime Emmy nominations, the most of any nominee for the third straight year. The shows nominations include Outstanding Drama Series, two for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington) and three for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Maisie Williams).
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While the series is earning widespread acclaim, its also growing more popular: The Season Six finale drew the largest audience in its history, with 8.9 million viewers, breaking its previous record of 8.1 million set for the Season Five finale.
Benioff and Weiss recently told Deadline that the shows pace is in line with their long-term game plan. Its two more seasons were talking about, Benioff said. From pretty close to the beginning, we talked about doing this in 70-75 hours, and thats what well end up with. Call it 73 for now. What Dan says is really true, but its not just trying not to outstay your welcome. Were trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end.
From Jon Snows fate to Aryas face, find out what were curious about going into Season Six.