‘Game of Thrones’ season 7 won’t debut until summer 2017 but with only seven episodes why is production taking so much longer?
‘Game of Thrones’ season 7 is currently in production and won’t wrap up filming until February, which is about two months later than the typical schedule for a 10-episode season in the series.
Executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss explained at the end of season 6 that ‘Game of Thrones’ season 7 wouldn’t debut until summer 2017 primarily because shooting would not start until later due to winter finally arriving in Westeros and shooting would need to take place during a colder time of year than usual.
‘Game of Thrones’ typically films from July to December but the production schedule for season 7 will run from September to February except for one problem — there are only seven episodes for the seventh season instead of 10. So why is production taking so much longer for less episodes?
“They are taking the length of time it takes to shoot 10 episodes to shoot just seven this year and six next year,” Iain Glenn, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont on the show explained in a recent interview. “There are 15 more hours left in Thrones as we understand it, but that may change, but that’s as far as we know.
“I think the scale and size of the set pieces, the world that is being created it’s just getting more and more extraordinary and they feel they need that time to shoot seven hours as opposed to 10.”
In other words, ‘Game of Thrones’ producers are spending just as much time weaving together seven episodes as they would normally spend creating 10 during a typical season.
In the past, Benioff and Weiss have explained what an exhaustive process it is to make ‘Game of Thrones’ and how producing 10 episodes for a season was already a difficult task just given the scope of filming, post production, effects and other work that goes into creating the hit series for HBO.
With finite time left on ‘Game of Thrones’ it’s clear that the series is sparing no expense to make sure that the story ends the right way and that includes extra time in production for less episodes.
One thing that hasn’t been made clear just yet is whether or not ‘Game of Thrones’ season 7 could potentially feature some extended episodes with more than the standard 60-minute run time.
There’s also no official word from ‘Game of Thrones’ or HBO on whether or not the final season will actually only last for six episodes. That’s been the speculation for months but until ‘Game of Thrones’ season 7 wraps up and debuts on television, there’s no telling on how much time is left during the final season that will debut in 2018.
