We're thrilled that winter is finally coming on Game of Thrones — truly. But the news that we're going to have to wait longer than usual for our return to Westeros because of said seasonal change? Not cool. HBO confirmed in a press release that season 7 of Game of Thrones won't premiere until summer 2017 as opposed the show's usual spring debut. And Apparently, we have the fact that "winter is coming" to blame for the delay.
"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," said president of HBO programming Casey Bloys. "Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule." But that's not even the worst of it. HBO also revealed that we're only going to get seven episodes next season, instead of the usual 10.
Last week, Benioff and Weiss explained the production delay and the decision to shoot in Iceland in greater detail during a podcast. "‘Winter is here’ — and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore," they said. "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." Ugh. All we can say is this better be some next-level winter-doldrums kind of weather next season.