Game of Thrones writers and producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss say season seven will be delayed because, while winter had arrived in Westeros, we have to wait for it to reach Iceland and Northern Ireland.
While some conspiracy theorists believe the show is secretly all about man-made global warming, it appears the producers are simply waiting for the natural winter months to arrive before filming the arrival of winter in Westeros.
Benioff and Weiss told Matt Serra and Jim Norton of the podcast UFC Unfiltered that season seven, “will probably [air] a little bit later, because at the end of this season, ‘winter is here.’ And that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore. We kind of pushed everything so we could get some grim, gray weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.”
The series used artificial snow during the first season, but has used filming locations in Iceland and Northern Ireland ever since. Iceland averages between four and five hours of daylight in December and January. Fans should be encouraged by the fact that Reykjavik, Iceland, experienced its highest snowfall on record this past December when 16.5 inches of snow fell in one morning.
The news that season seven will be delayed comes a few days after series producers told Deadline the final two seasons of “Game of Thrones” will likely consist of 15 episodes total. Most seasons have 10 episodes, but due to the increased amount of time it takes to shoot each season, they are reducing the number for the final two.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the season 6 finale was the series’ most-watched episode, with 8.9 million viewers. The sixth season averaged over 23.3 million weekly viewers across original telecasts combined with streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now.
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