Winter has come and HBO is saying, "Let it Snow," for as long as the "Game of Thrones" showrunners need it to.
The HBO drama is supposedly taking the same amount of time it normally needs to produce a 10-episode season to make seven episodes for Season 7.
Actor Iain Glen, who plays Jorah Mormont, confirmed the news to RadioTimes:
They are taking the length of time it takes to shoot ten episodes to shoot just seven this year and six next year. There are fifteen more hours left in Thrones as we understand it, but that may change, but that's as far as we know.
The show's 2017 premiere was already going to air later than usual in order for production to film in bleaker weather, but there was some hope that fewer episodes would keep the delay to a minimum. Sadly, that's apparently not the case.
But who cares?
Filming for a "Game of Thrones" season usually spans multiple countries and takes around five months to complete. By taking the same amount of time for the show's shorter penultimate season, HBO will have the opportunity to make the final product that much more impressive. Glen even said the series is getting "more extraordinary":
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 ten.
Glen understandably didn't say whether or not his character will make it to the end, and all of you looking for clues on IMDb will likely come up with bupkis. The actor, who you can also see on the Sky drama "Delicious," previously told The Huffington Post that actors can take on multiple projects and still be on "Game of Thrones" because the show has been "amenable to actors doing other work around it."
He did, however, note to RadioTimes that he completed a head count and realized there are very few actors remaining from the pilot.
(Yeah, dude, we've noticed.)
Keeping that in mind, it's not looking too good for a lot of characters as the show winds down.
Maisie Williams, one of the other actors who's still around, previously tweeted that "nothing will prepare you" for Season 7. Even with the supposed plot leak, that prediction is starting to look pretty accurate.