The Premiere Date for 'Game of Thrones' Season 7 Was Just Announced, and You Won't Be Happy

published 18 July 2016

HBO released details about Game of Thrones' seventh season on Monday, including the premiere date—and the news isn't great. Instead of premiering the new season in the spring, as HBO has usually done, Season 7 won't start until summer 2017.

"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 press release. "Instead of the show's traditional spring debut, we're moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule." Benioff and Weiss elaborated on the production pushback earlier this month, adding that "sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes anymore."

But wait! It gets worse. Season 7, according to Variety, will consist of just seven episodes. All the previous seasons have had 10 episodes. This was widely expected, as Benioff previously said to expect 13 episodes, total, in the final two seasons.

The next season will be filmed in Northern Ireland, Spain, and Iceland. Entertainment Weekly noted that it's been a couple years since Game of Thrones last shot significant portions in Iceland, which it's traditionally used for North of the Wall scenes.

While you wait what seems like forever for new episodes, take heart. Last week, Game of Thrones was nominated for a whopping 23 Emmys, including a first-time nomination for Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark.

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