The millions of fans of Game of Thrones across the globe might still be reeling in joy, shock and euphoria following the breathtaking finale of the 6th season of the series but they would be interested to know that HBO has already announced that they would be releasing the 7th season in around June of 2017. That is a bit of a departure from earlier seasons but what is even more important is the fact that the 7th season would not have the routine 10 episodes but instead the season will be wrapped up in 7 episodes.
These are without doubt major changes in the series that might work either way for fans who might not really like the idea of cutting back the season by three episodes however there are certain additional changes that are going on behind the scenes. As the Entertainment Weekly reported in a recent article, "...Also, the network is confirming for the first time that next edition will consist of seven episodes (a pull back from the show's usual 10 hours). Plus, HBO added that the next season will be shot in Northern Ireland, Spain, and Iceland. It's been a couple years since the Thrones team used Iceland for significant shooting, having primarily used the location for North of the Wall scenes when Jon Snow was embedded with the Wildlings camp."
Casey Bloys, the president of programming at BO stated, "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. Instead of the show's traditional spring debut, we're moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule." The report on Entertainment Weekly also added, "Benioff and Weiss also recently told the UFC Unfiltered podcast that production was getting a later start this year to film in wintery locations, which prompted speculation that the show's return date might also be pushed. "We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here' - and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more. 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." "
